rOPERATION 

CLAYTON 


THEPEGPLE'S  B OOKS 


t$mmlimmmmKttm 


4' 


(?^' 


tu^^^ ' 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arcliive 

in  2007  witli  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/cooperationOOclayiala 


CO-OPERATION 

By  JOSEPH  CLAYTON 


LONDON:  T.  C.  &  E.  C.  JACK 
67  LONG  ACRE,  W.C.,  AND  EDINBURGH 
NEW    YORK:     DODGE    PUBLISHING    CO. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

I.    INTEODUCnON 


II.   HISTORICAL 

m.   COOPERATIVE   DISTRIBUTION 
IV.   CO-OPERATIVE  PRODUCTION     . 
V.   CO-PARTNERSHIP  AND  PROFIT-SHARING 
VI.   CO-OPERATION  IN   AGRICULTURE       . 
Vn.   THE   CONTINENTAL  CO-OPERATOR     . 
Vrn.   EDUCATIONAL  WORK 

IX,    CONCLUSION 

BIBLIOGRAPHY           .... 
ADDRESSES  OF  CO-OPERATIVE  ORGANISATIONS 
INDEX 


6 

9 

26 

38 

48 
58 
67 
76 
84 
92 
93 
94 


iil 


CO-OPERATION 


CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTION 

The  Co-operative  Store  is  a  recognised  institution  in 
every  large  industrial  centre — London  excepted — in 
Great  Britain  to-day.  It  is  not  to  be  confused  with 
the  London  West  End  stores.  For  these  are  simply 
limited  liability  companies,  and  though  sometimes  they 
are  labelled  '"  co-operative  "  they  have  no  real  hkeness 
or  affinity  to  the  store  of  the  Industrial  Co-operative 
Society  of  our  manufacturing  districts.  Here  we  are 
not  concerned  with.  London's  West  End  supply  stores. 
It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  while  membership  in  an 
Industrial  Co-operative  Society  and  participation  in 
the  society's  "  dividend  "  are  open  to  any  normal  adult 
person  who  cares  to  take  up  a  £1  share  and  become  a 
customer  at  the  store,  the  shareholders  in  a  London 
"  store  "  are  restricted  in  number  as  they  are  in  other 
limited  hability  companies,  and  its  customers  no  more 
expect  a  half-yearly  dividend  on  the  amount  of  their 
purchases  than  they  desire  to  take  part  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  business. 

Our  concern,  in  the  main,  is  with  the  industrial 
co-operative  movement  in  Great  Britain  ;  to  note  its 
birth  and  gro^vth,  tell  something  of  the  work  it  has 
accomjilish^,  and  glance  at  later  co-operative  develop- 
ments and  their  possibihties. 


6  CO-OPERATION 

Incidentally,  because  \\'ithin  the  compass  of  a 
"  People's  Book "  necessarily  we  cannot  deal  with 
Co-operation  in  all  its  forms  throughout  the  world, 
there  is  reference  to  the  remarkable  organisation  oi 
agriculture  in  Ireland,  and  to  one  or  two  examples  of 
Co-operative  enterprise  on  the  Continent.  Some  account 
of  profit-sharing  and  labour  co-partnership  is  also  in- 
cluded ;  for  though  these  things  are  not  recognised  by 
co-operators  generally  as  fully  coming  within  the  term 
"  co-operative,"  yet  as  they  are  chiefly'  informed  by  the 
spirit  of  association,  and  are  a  fruit  of  that  spirit,  to 
omit  them  would  be  a  scrupulous  and  pedantic  refine- 
ment, both  inconvenient  and  inappropriate. 

It  is  pecuUarly  British  this  co-operation  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  commodities — as  British  as  the  belief  in 
representative  government ;  and  in  both  cases  othra* 
nations  have  sought,  and  still  seek,  to  acquire  our  faith 
and  practice.  More  than  1400  Distributive  Co-opera- 
tive Societies,  vtith  a  total  membership  of  2,640,091 
persons,  were  in  existence  in  Great  Britain  in  1911, 
and  the  trade  of  these  societies  on  the  year  amounted 
to  £74,802,469.  The  report  of  the  last  Co-operative 
Congress  is  a  volume  of  more  than  500  pages.  These 
facts  are  mentioned  that  the  reader  may  realise  how 
huge  this  co-operative  movement  has  become  in  the 
last  sixty  years — and  the  history  of  its  success  is  all 
a  matter  of  sixty  years — and  how  meagre  must  be  our 
description  of  it.  All  but  a  few  indispensable  statistics 
are  left  out  in  the  pages  that  follow.  Not  by  any 
means  because  they  are  unimportant.  On  the  contrary 
the  statistics  of  co-operation  are  extremely  significant, 
and  unfold  a  tale  of  human  effort  that  far  exceeds  in 
interest  the  life-stories  of  successful  captains  of  industry. 
But  these  figures  can  be  studied  in  the  year-books  and 
reports  of  the  Co-operative  Union  and  the  Productive 
Federation. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  enumerate  all  the 
Productive  Societies,  or  to  give  a  hst  of  all  the  Dis- 
tributive Societies,  The  Productive  Federation's  Year- 
Book  and  the  Congi'ess  Report  of  the  C!o-operative 
Union  give  all  these  details  in  full. 

Our  omissions  are  many.  Nothing  is  said  concerning 
Co-operative  Insurance,  Urban  Co-operative  Banks,  or 
Co-partnership  in  Housing.  Other  expressions  of  Co- 
operative activity  are  mirecorded  or  get  but  the  scantiest 
acknowledgment. 

At  the  best  we  can  but  hope  that  in  the  bibliography 
at  the  end  the  reader  will  learn  where  all  shortcomings 
may  be  supplemented,  and  deficiencies  remedied. 

It  stands  out,  this  co-operative  movement,  as  one 
of  the  great  accompUshments  of  the  working-class  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  Inspired  by  men  of  social 
ideas  and  neighbourly  feeling,  co-operation  challenged 
the  hard  inhuman  doctrines  that  prevailed  in  the  current 
world  of  British  commerce  sixty  years  ago.  It  would 
have  none  of  John  Bright's  dictum  that  adulteration 
was  a  legitimate  form  of  competition,  and  against  the 
teaching  that  a  nation's  wealth  was  built  up  by  each 
member  striving  for  personal  riches  it  maintained  that 
mutual  aid  must  be  the  chief  factor  for  common  pros- 
perity. (At  the  same  time  the  co-operators  were  fully 
aUve  to  the  egotism  in  human  nature,  and  saw  that 
the  powerful  motive  of  self-interest  was  not  to  be 
ignored.  Therefore  the  contention  was  that  the  indi- 
vidual would  be  the  happier,  and  the  richer  in  this 
world's  goods,  by  association  with  his  fellows,  and  that 
unrestricted  competition  meant  misery  and  discomfort 
for  the  mass  of  people.) 

Industrial  Co-operation  was  not  sixty  years  ago,  any 
more  than  it  is  to-day,  the  only  expression  of  social 
principles.  In  many  other  forms  of  association  for 
mutual  aid  are  these  principles  seen  at  work. 


8  CO-OPERATION 

But  the  co-operators  have  been  amongst  the  fore- 
most exponents  of  social  ideas.  Their  leaders  con- 
spicuously strove  to  extend  co-operative  principles 
beyond  the  business  of  store-keeping,  and  to  hifuse  high 
standards  of  citizenship  in  all  who  would  hear  their 
message.  Public-spiritedly  they  cared  more  for  the 
success  of  their  social  principles  than  for  personal 
popularity,  and  were  content  to  be  denied  the  triumphs 
of  the  party  poUtician. 

Theirs  is  the  triumph  that  endures.  For  in  this 
twentieth  century  we  are  all  filled  with  the  social 
principle,  and  mutual  service  abounds.  The  men  and 
women  of  good\vill  are  in  every  political  party,-  and 
have  their  organisations  for  social  service  in  every 
religious  denomination.  The  doctrines  of  the  old  Man- 
chester School,  the  doctrines  of  unrestricted  competi- 
tion and  of  each  man  for  himself  and  the  devil  take 
the  hindmost,  are  as  dead  as  the  Deism  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

We  reap  in  abundance  the  patient  sowing  of  the  early 
co-operators.  In  obscurity,  in  the  teeth  of  bitter  oppo- 
sition, despised  and  ridiculed  by  the  wise  ones  of  the 
world,  those  early  co-operators  laboured,  sure  in  their 
mission,  strong  in  their  social  faith. 

Glancing  back  over  the  travelled  road,  their  successors 
on  the  march  may  note  the  obstacles  overcome,  the 
losses  suffered,  the  mistakes  committed,  the  victories 
gained.  And  the  knowledge  should  not  be  unhelpful. 
For  the  progress  in  co-operation  has  always  depended 
on  knowledge,  no  less  than  on  faith,  and  must  always 
so  depend.  These  are  the  days  of  faith ;  it  is  time, 
perhaps,  to  put  in  a  word  for  knowledge,  and  to  plead 
for  a  wisely  informed  intelligence  in  social  movements. 


CHAPTER   II 

HISTORICAL 

Robert  Owen — Communistic  Colonies — The  Rochdale  Pioneers — The 
Christian  Socialists — The  Wholesale  Society — The  Co-ojKjrative 
Union — The  Co-operative  Neva — Women's  Co-operative  Guild. 

Robert  Owen  is  the  recognised  foxinder  of  the  Co- 
operative Movement  in  England.^  All  co-operators  are 
agreed  upon  that  pomt.  But  the  movement  has  not 
taken  the  line  predicted  and  desired  by  Owen.  For 
that  remarkable  man,  the  foimder  of  social  ideas  in 
England  in  the  nineteenth  century,  obsessed  by  a  social 
creed,  never  forgot  "the  success  of  his  factory  manage- 
ment at  New  Lanark,  and  beheved  till  his  death  that 
self-governing,  self-supporting  communities,  colonies  of 
simple  communists,  inspired  by  an  ideal  of  mutual  aid, 
were  the  only  form  of  co-operation  worth  striving  for. 
The  store  and  the  labour  exchange  were  trivial  and 
insignificant  affairs  to  the  prospect  of  the  "  Xew  Moral 
World."  At  the  same  time  Owen,  for  all  his  stupendous 
visions  of  a  new  Society,  was  an  eminently  practical 
person  keenly  alive  to  the  misery  and  destitution  around 
him.  His  trade  unions  and  co-operative  societies,  both 
in  the  main  friendly  benefit  societies,  were  experi- 
mental and  did  not  survive.  But  the  unsuccessful 
experiment  is  often  invaluable  .in  its  suggestion,  and 

*  "  The  originator  of  Co-operation  was  Robert  Owen." — Holyoake, 
JSittory  of  Co-operation. 

"  Thus  two  separate  and  important  branches  of  social  reform — the 
socialistic  legislation  of  the  last  fifty  years  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  Co-o]jerative  Movement  on  the  other — sprang  out  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Robert  Owen." — Potter,  The  Co-operative  Morement  in  Ortat 
Britain. 

9 


10  CO-OPERATION 

the  later  trade  union,  co-operative  society,  and  friendly- 
society — each  organisation  in  the  form  we  know  it 
to-day — can  make  acknowledgments  for  its  success  to 
the  educational  work  of  Robert  Owen  and  his  immediate 
disciples. 

In  1821,  Owen  started  the  Economist,  the  first  of  a 
long  series  of  Owenite  publications,  and  in  the  same 
year  "  The  Co-operative  and  Economical  Society  "  was 
established  in  London  and  the  word  "  C!o-operative " 
was  added  to  the  EngHsh  language.  The  object  of  this 
society  was  to  set  up  a  communal  hfe  in  the  very  heart 
of  London.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  families  were  to 
occupy  a  set  of  dwellings,  and  as  far  as  possible  the 
communists  were  to  manufacture  the  goods  they  needed. 
The  scheme  looked  reasonable  enough,  but  the  two 
hundred  and  fifty  famihes  were  not  forthcoming.  What 
happened  was  that  a  store  was  opened,  and  that  for  the 
next  ten  years  societies  for  the  distribution  and  the 
co-operative  production  of  goods  sprang  up  in  various 
industrial  districts,  enjoyed  a  brief  popularity,  and 
expired.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  were  enormous. 
Want  of  union,  lack  of  education,  total  inexperience 
in  buying  and  selling,  and  the  utter  absence  of  all  legal 
protection  for  the  funds  of  the  society — so  that  any 
rascal  in  office  could  embezzle  with  impunity — all  these 
things  were  against  the  hope  of  permanent  success. 

These  early  co-operative  societies — estimated  at  250 
in  1830 — ^with  their  stores  and  workshops  d\^'indled 
and  sank,  to  be  succeeded  by  annual  Congresses,  a 
propaganda  of  Co-operative  "  Socialism,"  and  the  actual 
setting  up  of  communistic  colonies.  At  the  third  Con- 
gress held  in  London  in  1832  the  folloAiving  statement 
of  faith  was  made  : 

"  That  it  be  universally  understood  that  the  grand 
ultimate  object  of  all  co-operative  societies,  whether 


HISTORICAL  11 

engaged  in  trading,  manufacturing,  or  agrioultural  pur- 
suits, is  community  in  land." 

The  communal  colonies,  whether  in  England  or 
America,  were  no  more  successful  than  the  trading 
societies.  New  Harmony  in  Indiana,  which  existed 
from  1825  to  1828,  was  doomed  from  the  beginning, 
for  its  population  was  "  a  heterogeneous  collection  of 
Radicals,  enthusiastic  devotees  to  principle,  honest  lati- 
tudinarians,  and  lazy  theorists,  with  a  sprinkling  of 
unprincipled  sharpers  thrown  in  " — ^the  same  kind  of 
people,  in  fact,  who  have  been  attracted  to  every  kind 
of  communist  colony  in  our  own  times. 

At  Orbiston,  near  Motherwell  in  Lanarkshire,  three 
himdred  persons  joined  together  imder  Abram  Combe — 
a  man  of  exceptional  courage  and  considerable  abiUty 
— ^in  1825,  and  for  two  years  faced  hardship  for  the 
sake  of  their  communistic  principles.  Then  Combe 
died,  and  the  colony  came  to  ruin  for  want  of  capital 
and  good  management. 

Ralahine  in  co.  Clare,  an  estate  of  some  1200  acres, 
belonging  to  John  Scott  Vandeleur,  was  the  scene  of 
another  ill-fated  colony.  Vandeleur,  impressed  by 
Owen,  started  the  Ralahine  Agricultural  and  Manu- 
facturing Co-operative  Association  on  his  estate  in  1831, 
with  E.  T.  Craig  (who  Hved  on  till  1894)  as  secretary, 
and  fifty-two  of  his  tenants  as  members.  The  colony 
was  an  immediate  success.  It  paid  £900  a  year  rent 
to  Vandeleur,  and  the  co-operators  —  agricultural 
labourers — were  industrious,  comfortable,  and  happy. 
At  the  end  of  1833  came  the  catastrophe.  Vandeleur, 
an  inveterate  gambler,  gambled  himself  into  bank- 
ruptcy and  fled  the  country.  Ralahine  was  seized  and 
the  farm  stock  sold,  for  the  co-operative  society  had 
no  legal  existence,  and  "  tenant-right  "  was  not  recog- 
nised.    All  that  the  dispossessed  colonists  could  do  was 


12  CO-OPERATION 

to  acknowledge  "  the  contentment,  peace,  and  happi- 
ness they  had  experienced  for  two  years  under  the 
arrangements  introduced  by  Mr.  Vandeleur  and  Mr. 
Craig,  and  which,  through  no  fault  of  the  association, 
was  now  at  an  end." 

Queenwood,  in  Hampshire,  the  last  of  Owen's  attempts 
at  co-operative  colonisation,  failed  directly  for  want  of 
funds,  the  initial  expenditure  on  buildings  and  machi- 
nery leaving  the  necessary  capital  for  maintaming  the 
inhabitants  far  too  small.  Fifty-seven  persons  went  to 
live  at  Queenwood  in  1840,  on  500  acres  bought  by  the 
Home  Colonisation  Society,  and  within  the  year  the 
numbers  were  reduced  to  nineteen.  By  taking  pupils, 
life  at  Queenwood  was  prolonged,  but  the  agriculturists 
were  starved  for  want  of  ready  money  to  replenish 
stock,  and  seeds  and  tools,  and  in  1845  the  place  was 
given  up  and  sold. 

Robert  Owen  had  no  personal  responsibility  for  these 
adventures,  and  in  every  case  he  warned  co-operative 
communists  from  embarking  on  their  schemes  without 
sufficient  capital.  But  Owen  never  doubted  that  co- 
operative colonies  on  a  basis  of  communism  were  the 
cure  for  all  social  distress  and  unrest.  At  New  Lanark 
he  had  seen  what  could  be  done  in  a  small  well-regulated 
community.  There,  in  the  course  of  a  very  few  years, 
order,  cleanliness,  and  comfort  had  superseded  lawless 
savagery,  dirt,  and  general  discomfort.  Elementary 
education,  a  studied  consideration  of  childhood,  and  a 
real  will  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  factory  opera- 
tives wrought  wonders  at  New  Lanark.  Therefore, 
similar  wonders  could  be  wrought  elsewhere,  and  the 
new  moral  Avorld  ushered  into  being,  Owen  argued. 
But  the  great  factor  at  New  Lanark  was  Owen's  auto- 
cratic government.  The  cotton  operatives  at  New 
Lanark,  men,  women,  and  children,  simply  had  to  obey 
their  employer  or  go  ;  and  conscious  of  their  employer's 


HISTORICAL  13 

disinterested  aims,  and  learning  to  appreciate  his  wise 
counsels,  they  naturally  preferred  to  stay  at  New 
Lanark  and  enjoy  the  excellent  paternal  government 
provided,  than  to  wander  abroad  or  starve  in  mi- 
employment. 

But  no  such  coercion  was  provided  in  the  co-opera- 
tive colonies,  and  hitherto  in  the  world's  history  only 
where  a  strong  and  common  religious  faith  prevails 
have  communities  enjoyed  any  lasting  existence.  The 
Home  Colony  of  Owen's  new  world  was  to  cover  some 
2000  acres  and  number  some  2000  persons.  It  was  to 
be  entirely  free  of  all  external  rule,  and  of  all  internal 
ci\'il  or  religious  authority,  and  it  was  to  be  kept  to- 
gether entirely  by  mutual  service  and  goodwill.  There 
was  not  a  ghost  of  a  chance  of  co-operation  succeeding 
on  such  Hnes  in  England  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

Robert  Owen  died  in  1858,  an  old  man  of  eighty- 
seven,  outliving  by  many  years  his  schemes  for  co- 
operative colonies.  But  the  seed  of  his  teaching  had 
borne  fruit  before  Owen's  death  :  for  the  twenty-eight 
"  Equitable  Pioneers  "  of  Rochdale  started  their  society 
and  opened  their  distributive  store  in  1844,  and  by  so 
doing  dated  the  beguming  of  the  modem  co-operative 
movement.  "  These  twenty-eight  Lancashire  working- 
men  successfully  grafted  certain  portions  of  Robert 
Owen's  co-operative  ideal  on  a  vigorous  democratic 
stock,  out  of  which  has  spnmg  the  modem  co-opera- 
tive movement  with  its  milUon  members,  thirty-six 
milUons  of  annual  trade,  three  millions  of  yearly  '  pro- 
fits,' and  twelve  millions  of  accumulated  capital."  * 
The  story  of  the  Rochdale  Pioneers  has  often  been 
told,  and  its  importance  cannot  be  overestimated.  For 
the  great  principle  of  the  Rochdale  Society  was  that 
the  tradmg  profits  of  the  Society  should  be  di\-ided 
amongst  the  members  according  to  the  amount  of  their 
^  Potter,  The  Co-operative  Movement. 


14  CO-OPERATION 

purchases,  and  this  principle — strengthened  by  cash 
payments  on  the  part  of  the  customer  in  return  for  a 
genuine  article  supplied  by  the  store — is  the  very  life 
of  the  co-operative  movement.  "  The  plan  of  associa- 
tion adopted  by  the  Eochdale  Equitable  Pioneers,  by 
reason  of  its  equity,  its  adaptabihty  to  co-operative 
transactions,  and  its  almost  immediate  success,  has 
become  the  distinguishing  feature  in  the  development 
of  consumers'  co-operation  since  1844.  A  Society 
following  this  plan  is  said  to  be  estabhshed  mider  the 
'  Rochdale  System,'  and  is  accounted  a  genuine  unit 
in  the  British  Co-operative  Movement  only  in  so  far  as 
its  rules  and  practices  approximate  to  its  model."  ^ 

William  Cooper,  James  Smithees,  and  Charles  Howarth 
— Owenite  Sociahsts,  Cooper  and  Howarth — were  the 
leading  spirits  amongst  the  little  band  of  distressed 
weavers,  twenty-eight  in  all,  who  subscribed  £1  apiece 
to  start  the  Rochdale  Society,  and  it  was  Howarth's 
idea  to  apportion  the  profits  on  sales  according  to  the 
amount  of  goods  purchased.  (The  idea  did  not  originate 
with  Howarth.  Several  Scottish  societies  claim  to  have 
followed  the  practice  ten  years  before.  It  was,  however, 
Howarth  and  the  Rochdale  Society  who  estabhshed  the 
system.) 

The  distributive  store  was  only  one  item  in  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  Rochdale  Pioneers.  In  their  first  fist 
of  "  objects,"  co-operative  house-building,  manufac- 
tures, the  purchase  and  cultivation  of  land  and  a  tem- 
perance hotel,  are  all  included,  with  the  intimation 
"  that  as  soon  as  practicable,  this  Society  shall  proceed 
to  arrange  the  powers  of  production,  distribution,  edu- 
cation, and  government :  or  in  other  words,  to  estabUsh 
a  self-supporting  home  colony  of  united  interests,  or 
assist  other  societies  in  estabUshing  such  colonies.'* 

^  C.  Webb,  Industrial  Co-operation. 


HISTORICAL  15 

The  distributive  store,  with  its  modest  beginnings 
in  the  sale  of  butter,  oatmeal,  tea,  and  similar  com- 
modities, on  two  evenings  in  the  week,  was  a  suecees 
from  the  first.  The  28  members  had  become  4747  ia 
1864,  11,986  in  1904,  and  18,924  m  1911.  The  funds 
increased  from  £28  m  1844  to  £62,105  in  1864,  £254,000 
in  1904,  and  £368,122  in  1911.  The  purchase  of  neces- 
sary commodities  and  their  co-operative  distribution 
was  plainly  a  good  thing  for  the  working  people ;  the 
"  seK-supportmg  "  home  colony  slowly  faded  from  the 
vision  of  British  co-operators,  never  to  reappear. 

Societies  on  the  basis  of  profit-sharing  with  the 
customer  were  quickly  started  in  many  of  the  manu- 
facturing towns  of  the  North  when  the  success  of  Roch- 
dale was  assured,  and  these  societies  have  marched 
prospering,  till  to-day  the  co-operative  society  is  a 
recognised  feature  in  every  town  of  importance  where 
large  bodies  of  men  and  women  are  permanently  em- 
ployed. Leeds  Industrial  Society  dates  from  1847  ; 
Derby  Society  from  1850 ;  Oldham  Industrial  from 
1850  ;  Halifax  from  1851  ;  Manchester  and  Salford 
from  1859 ;  Bolton,  PljTnouth,  and  Leicester  from  1860. 
The  experiment  of  the  Rochdale  Pioneers  has  been 
amply  justified  by  time,  and  the  stout-hearted  way 
this  handful  of  resolute  men  triumphed  over  difficulties 
and  escaped  disaster  has  won  fuU  recognition. 

What  with  the  hostility  of  shop-keepers,  the  lack  of 
education,  and  the  want  of  legal  protection  for  co- 
operators,  it  was  an  enterprise  that  seemed  to  many 
to  invite  ruin,  this  setting  up  a  store  sixty  years  ago. 
And  it  is  here  that  the  invaluable  help  of  the  Christian 
Socialists  to  the  co-operative  movement  must  be  noted. 
For  these  Christian  Sociahsts — so  they  called  them- 
selves— a  little  group  of  earnest  Church  of  England 
men,  two  of  them  clergymen,  F.  D.  Maurice  and  Charles 
Kingsley,  and  three  of  them,  Thomas  Hughes,  J.  M. 


16  CO-OPERATION 

Ludlow,  and  E.  Vansittart  Neale,  barristers,  laboured, 
and  laboured  effectively,  to  destroy  prejudice  against 
the  co-operative  principle,  to  promote  education  amongst 
the  working  people,  and  to  secure  the  protection  of  the 
law  for  the  funds  and  other  property  of  co-operative 
societies. 

Vansittart  Neale,  in  after  years  the  secretary  of  the 
Co-operative  Union,  left  on  record  what  the  Christian 
Socialists  of  1848  aimed  at : 

"  Theoretically,  the  idea  we  endeavoured  to  spread 
was  the  conception  of  workers  as  brethren — of  work  as 
coming  from  a  brotherhood  of  men  associated  for  their 
common  benefit — ^i;\ho  therefore  rejected  any  notion  of 
competition  with  each  other  as  inconsistent  with  the 
true  form  of  society  and,  Avithout  formally  preachuig 
communism,  sought  to  form  industrial  establishments 
communistic  in  feeHng,  of  which  it  should  be  the  aim, 
while  paying  ordinary  wages  and  interest  at  the  rate 
I  have  mentioned  (4  per  cent.)  to  apply  the  profits  of 
the  business  in  ways  conducive  to  the  common  advan- 
tage of  the  body  whose  work  produced  them." 

A  "  Society  for  Promoting  Working  Men's  Associa- 
tions "  was  formed  at  the  close  of  1849,  and  for  a  year 
or  two  all  sorts  of  self-governing  associations  of  pro- 
ducers— and  conspicuously  bootmakers  and  tailors — 
were  before  the  pubhc,  only  to  die  an  early  death 
through  internal  disagreement  or  to  pass  into  the  hands 
of  ordinary  men  of  business.  But  the  principles  of 
these  Associations  of  Producers  survived,  to  bear  later 
fruit  in  the  Co-partnership  Societies  of  our  own  day. 
The  high  character,  the  hterary  gifts,  and  the  dis- 
interested enthusiasm  of  the  Christian  Socialists  were 
the  things  that  counted  in  1850  to  estabUsh  the  reputa- 
tion of  co-operators  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation.  And 
if  the  self-governing  workshops  were  not  exactly  a 
success,    the   distributive   societies   in    Yorkshire   and 


1 


HISTORICAL  17 

Lancashire  were  certainly  the  stronger  for  the  advocacy 
of  men  hke  Hughes,  Ludlow,  and  Neale  ;  who  with  all 
their  zeal  for  co-operative  production  were  the  faithful 
friends  of  every  branch  of  industrial  co-operation. 

Then  the  service  to  education  rendered  by  the  Work- 
ing Men's  College  was  also  of  service  to  co-operation. 
Started  by  F.  D.  Maurice  and  his  friends  in  1854  in 
Great  Ormond  Street,  Bloomsbury,  for  fifty  years  the 
College  carried  on  its  work  at  that  address,  only  moving 
in  1904  to  larger  premises  in  St,  Pancras.  Evening 
classes  and  popular  lectures  on  every  subject  under  the 
sun  abound  nowadays,  but  it  was  a  vastly  different 
state  of  affairs  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  Working  Men's  College  enlisted  the  sympathies  of 
many  distinguished  persons  in  the  cause  of  education, 
and  its  pupils  included  several  men  of  mark  in  the 
co-operative  movement. 

The  third  and  greatest  service  of  the  Christian 
Socialists  was  in  getting  Parliament  to  give  legal  recog- 
nition to  co-operative  societies.  Before  1852  a  co- 
operative society  was,  as  far  as  the  law  was  concerned, 
a  private  partnership,  and  every  member  was  responsible 
for  the  total  liabilities  of  the  society.  If  it  had  more 
than  twenty-five  members  it  had  no  legal  existence  at 
all,  and  no  means  of  defence  against  embezzlement  or 
robbery,  and  no  power  of  enforcing  its  rules.  And  in 
spite  of  these  discouragmg  conditions  co-operative 
societies  existed  and  even  made  progress.  The  Indus- 
trial and  Provident  Societies'  Acts  of  1852  and  1862 
were  directly  the  work  of  the  Christian  Socialists.  The 
first  of  these  Acts  (drafted  by  Mr.  J.  M.  Ludlow)  gave 
workmen's  co-operative  associations  a  legal  right  to 
live,  and  to  protect  their  property  against  dishonest 
ofl&cers,  and  to  compel  obedience  by  members  to  their 
rules.  The  Act  of  1862  consolidated  a  number  of  Acts 
and  limited  the  liabihty  of  members  of  a  co-operative 


18  CO-OPERATION 

society  to  the  amount  of  shares  held.  Mr.  Ludlow  not 
only  drafted  the  Act  of  1852,  he  became  Chief  Registrar 
of  Industrial  and  Provident  Societies  in  1874,  and  then 
for  many  years  was  responsible  for  the  administration 
of  the  laws  he  had  so  largely  helped  to  make.  Another 
of  the  Christian  SociaHst  band,  Vansittart  Neale,  drew 
up  the  model  rules  of  a  co-operative  society,  wrote  the 
first  Handbook  for  Co-operators,  and  acted  as  legal 
adviser  to  the  movement ;  while  Thomas  Hughes,  with 
Walter  Morrison  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  championed 
the  co-operative  cause  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
both  Hughes  and  Morrison  gained  an  unpopularity 
thereby  with  shop-keeping  voters  that  helped  them  to 
lose  their  seats. 

Thomas  Huo'hes  presided  at  the  first  of  the  present 
series  of  Co-operative  Congresses,  held  in  London  in 
1869,  and  with  Walter  Morrison,  Vansittart  Neale,  and 
J.  M.  Ludlow,  was  chosen  to  sit  on  the  first  Central 
Board  of  Co-operators  appointed  at  that  Congress. 
Three  years  later,  at  Bolton,  Hughes  again  presided, 
and  Vansittart  Neale  presided  at  the  Dewsbury  Congress 
in  1888.  To  the  end  of  their  days  the  group  of  Christian 
Sociahsts  remained  in  active  sympathy  with  the  co- 
operative movement. 

The  establishment  of  this  annual  Congress  and  the 
formation  of  the  Central  Board  mark  a  great  advance 
in  the  movement,  and  were  events  of  first  importance 
in  the  progress  of  education  in  co-operative  principles. 
On  the  business  side  the  expansion  of  the  movement, 
the  desire  for  a  pure  quahty  of  goods,  and  the  difficulties 
with  certain  traders  had  already  demanded  a  wholesale 
agency  for  co-operative  societies,  and  this  demand  had 
been  met  in  1864  by  the  creation  at  Manchester  of 
the  "  North  of  England  Co-operative  Wholesale  Indus- 
trial and  Provident  Society,  Limited,"  and  the  Scottish 
Wholesale  Society  in    1868.    The  North  of   England 


HISTORICAL  19 

Wholesale  Society  became  the  "  Co-operative  Whole- 
sale Society  "  in  1873,  and  as  such  it  is  known  to  this 
day. 

The  share  capital  of  the  Enghsh  Wholesale  was 
raised  by  existing  retail  societies,  and  its  membership 
was  (and  is)  confined  to  these  societies.  The  Scottish 
Wholesale,  established  on  a  similar  basis,  also  admits 
its  employees  to  membership.  In  both  cases,  from  the 
first,  the  Wholesale  has  traded  only  with  co-operative 
societies  and  on  ready-money  terms.  The  societies 
trading  with  the  Wholesale  receive  a  dividend  according 
to  the  amount  of  their  purchases  (in  other  words  a 
share  of  their  profits),  in  the  same  way  as  individual 
members  receive  a  "  dividend "  at  their  local  store, 
and  there  is  a  similar  obligation  on  retail  societies  to 
deal  at  the  Wholesale  as  there  is  on  the  ordinary  member 
to  purchase  at  the  local  store. 

The  development  of  the  Co-operative  Wholesale 
Society,  and  its  steady,  but  none  the  less  astonishing, 
increase  of  trade  are  a  great  chapter  in  the  history  of 
co-operation,  and  can  only  be  studied  in  full  in  the 
pubhcations  of  the  movement.  The  wholesale  agency 
of  1863  has  become  a  wholesale  productive  agency  with 
its  own  factories  for  clothing  and  boots,  and  for  food 
and  furniture,  its  own  steamships  and  foreign  depots, 
its  creameries,  fruit  farms,  soap  works,  Ceylon  tea 
estates,  and  printing  works.  In  1871  the  Wholesale 
opened  a  branch  at  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  and  the  follow- 
ing year  started  banking.  The  Crumpsall  Biscuit 
Factory  and  the  Leicester  Boot  Factory  were  purchased 
in  1873,  the  London  branch  established  in  1874,  a 
branch  at  New  York  was  opened  in  1876,  when  the 
first  steamship  Plover  was  bought,  and  in  1879  and 
1881  branches  were  opened  at  Rouen  and  Copenhagen 
respectively.  In  1884  the  Bristol  depot  and  a  branch 
at   Hamburg   were  opened.     In    1887,   the  Wholesale 


20  CO-OPERATION 

began  to  manufacture  its  own  cocoa  and  chocolate,  in 
1894  it  opened  a  branch  at  Montreal,  and  in  1896  a 
branch  was  opened  at  Gothenburg,  and  a  printing 
department  and  the  Islam  Soap  Works  were  added  to 
the  list  of  activities. 

The  Sydney,  N.S.W.,  depot  and  the  Banbury  Creamerj' 
were  opened  in  1897,  and  in  1903  the  English  and 
Scottish  Wholesale  became  joint  owners  of  the  Ceylon 
Tea  Estates.  A  fleet  of  steamers  now  brings  the  goods 
of  the  Wholesale  from  America,  Australia,  Canada, 
Denmark,  France,  Germany,  Greece,  Turkey,  Holland, 
and  Sweden,  so  vast  is  the  trade  done. 

The  record  of  the  Scottish  Wholesale  is  equally 
remarkable  even  though  the  extent  of  its  trade  is  not 
so  wide.  The  headquarters  are  in  Glasgow,  and  there 
are  branches  at  Leith,  opened  in  1877,  for  grocery  and 
provisions ;  at  Kilmarnock,  opened  in  1878,  chiefly  for 
agricultural  produce ;  and  at  Dundee,  opened  in  1881. 

It  was  not  till  1881  that  the  Scottish  Wholesale 
started  manufactures,  and  in  that  year  it  began 
modestly,  and  with  native  caution,  with  shirts  and 
tailoring,  adding  furniture  in  the  following  year.  Hosiery 
in  1886,  printing  in  1887,  brushes  and  clothing  in  1890, 
confectionery  and  tobacco  in  1891,  flovu:  in  1894,  tweeds 
and  blankets  in  1896,  soap  in  1897,  a  creamery  at  Ennis- 
killen  in  1898,  fish-curing  at  Aberdeen  in  1899,  and 
lineal  shirts  in  1901,  mark  the  progress  made  in  pro- 
duction ;  but  these  items  by  no  means  exhaust  the 
list  of  manufactures  now  carried  on  by  the  Scottish 
Wholesale. 

Apart  from  the  productive  and  distributive  activities 
of  the  Wholesale  Societies,  there  is  a  Co-operative 
Productive  Federation  with  headquarters  at  Leicester, 
which  was  established  in  1882  to  act  as  an  agency  for 
those  Productive  Societies  conducted  rather  on  the  old 
traditions  of  the  Christian  Socialist  self-governing  work- 


HISTORICAL  21 

shoj)s  than  on  the  methods  of  the  Rochdale  system. 
Printers  and  shoemakers  were  the  chief  productive 
co-operators  from  1880  to  1905,  but  in  the  last  seven 
years  agricultural  associations  have  multipUed.  In  fact 
it  is  only  in  agriculture  and  dairy  farming  that  any 
increase  in  the  number  of  productive  societies  is  seen, 
and  every  year  sees  the  \vinding  up  of  some  working- 
class  productive  organisation. 

From  the  commerce  of  the  Wholesale  Societies  and 
the  Productive  Federation  let  us  turn  to  the  progress 
of  purely  educational  work  in  the  co-operative 
movement. 

The  first  National  Co-operative  Congress,  held  in 
London  in  1869,  was  responsible  for  the  creation  of  the 
Central  Board,  and  from  the  Central  Board  twenty 
years  later  came  the  Co-operative  Union. 

The  circular  inviting  societies  to  attend  the  London 
Congress  set  forth  the  reasons  for  education  in  co-opera- 
tive principles  : 

"  Co-operation  is  spreading  everywhere ;  but  its 
leading  principles  are  not  strictly  defined,  or  its  higher 
aims  understood.  The  methods  of  business,  in  dis- 
tribution or  production,  of  the  different  societies,  are 
not  in  harmony.  Its  success  in  individual  cases  is 
doubtful  where  it  might  be  certain ;  whilst,  where 
failure  and  losses  occur,  they  are  at  once  hurtful  to 
those  who  enter  on  such  experiments,  and  a  grave 
discouragement  to  others. 

"  While  the  success  of  the  movement  is  no  longer 
doubtful,  there  are  obstacles  to  be  removed,  dangers 
encoimtered,  and  higher  objects  sought,  which  render 
coimsel  necessary  among  those  who  have  studied  the 
principles  of  co-operation,  and  who  have  practically 
engaged  themselves  in  its  working." 

Congress  has  been  from  the  first  of  great  service 
both  in  maintaining  the  principles  and  "  higher  objects  '* 


22  CO-OPERATION 

of  co-operation  and  in  giving  practical  help  to  new 
and  inexperienced  societies  ;  but  it  has  not  succeeded 
in  bringing  the  methods  of  the  Distributive  Societies 
and  the  English  Wholesale  into  harmony  with  the 
methods  of  the  smaller  body  of  co-operators  to  whom 
the  producer  is  the  person  to  be  considered  before  the 
consumer. 

At  Congress  and  on  the  Central  Board  and  in  the 
Co-operative  Union  both  schools  meet  freely,  and  the 
Productive  School,  represented  by  such  men  as  Van- 
sittart  Neale,  J.  M.  Ludlow,  Thomas  Hughes,  E.  O. 
Greening,  and  G.  J.  Holyoake,  has  always  been  enthusi- 
astic for  the  propaganda  of  co-operation,  and  for  keep- 
ing co-operators  up  to  their  high  calling.  The  very 
constitution  of  the  Co-operative  Union  is  a  constant 
reminder  that  the  movement  is  something  more  than 
a  device  for  aiding  the  wages  of  working  people  : 

"  The  Union  is  founded  to  promote  the  practice  of 
truthfulness,  justice,  and  economy  in  production  and 
exchange. 

"1.  By  the  abohtion  of  all  false  dealings  either 
(a)  direct,  by  representing  any  article  produced  or  sold 
to  be  other  than  what  it  is  knoAvn  to  the  producer  or 
vendor  to  be  ;  or  (b)  indirect,  by  concealing  from  the 
purchaser  any  fact  known  to  the  vendor  material  to  be 
known  by  the  purchaser,  to  enable  him  to  judge  of  the 
value  of  the  article  purchased. 

"2.  By  conciliating  the  conflicting  interests  of  the 
capitalist,  the  worker,  and  the  purchaser,  through  the 
fund  commonly  known  as  Profit. 

"  3.  By  preventing  the  waste  of  labour  now  caused  by 
unregulated  competition." 

The  Union,  in  fact,  is  anxious  to  be  respected  as  the 
conscience  of  the  movement,  and,  after  the  fashion  of 
erring  mortals,  its  voice,  if  not  always  obeyed,  is  cer- 
tainly respected. 


HISTORICAL  28 

The  governing  body  of  the  Union  is  a  Central  Board 
which  is  made  up  of  sixty-seven  representatives  from 
the  Sectional  Boards  of  the  seven  different  co-operative 
areas  of  Great  Britain.  These  sections  are  as  follows  : 
Midland,  Northern,  North-Western,  Scottish,  Southern, 
South- Western,  and  Western,  and  the  vast  majority  of 
co-operative  societies  are  members  of  the  Union  in 
one  or  other  of  these  areas,  and  are  the  electors  to  the 
Central  Board. 

As  the  Central  Board  meets,  as  a  rule,  only  twice  a 
year,  its  powers  are  largely  delegated  to  various  Com- 
mittees— notably  the  United  Board  (fourteen  representa- 
tives of  Sectional  Boards),  the  Educational  Committee, 
the  Productive  Committee,  the  Joint  ParUamentary 
Committee,  the  Joint  Committee  of  Trade  Unionists 
and  Co-operators,  and  the  Exhibitions  Committee. 
The  central  office  of  the  Co-operative  Union  is  at  Long 
Millgate,  Manchester,  and  it  has  branch  offices  in  London, 
Glasgow,  and  Newcastle-on-Tyne. 

If  the  Co-operative  Union  is  the  conscience  of  the 
movement,  at  the  Annual  Congress  the  ultimate  expres- 
sion of  the  co-operative  faith  is  declared  to  the  world. 
But  again,  co-operators,  hke  the  rest  of  mankind,  are 
often  perverse  of  mind  and  limited  in  vision,  and  so 
it  happens  that  many  a  fine  resolution  of  Congress 
remains — a  resolution  that  waits,  either  fulfilment  in 
the  far-o£E  future  or,  if  it  lack  vitaHty,  to  be  buried 
quietly  without  mourning. 

From  the  Congress  of  1870  came  the  birth  of  the 
Co-operative  News — founded  in  1871  by  the  Co-opera- 
tive Newspaper  Society.  Various  co-operative  periodi- 
cals flourished,  faded,  and  expired  in  the  days  of  the 
Owenite  propaganda,  and  the  Co-operator  founded  in 
1860  as  the  monthly  organ  of  the  Manchester  Equitable 
Society,  and  the  Scottish  Co-operator  founded  in  1863, 
endured    with    difficulty   till    1871.     The    Co-operative 


24  CO-OPERATION 

News — a  weekly  penny  newspaper — had  its  share  of 
bad  times  at  the  beginning,  but  has  long  been  a  flourish- 
ing and  highly  useful  concern.  It  is  the  property  of 
various  co-operative  societies — more  than  300  in  number 
— and  it  is  the  official  organ  of  the  co-operative  move- 
ment, and  the  impartial  representative  of  all  co-opera- 
tive opinion.  Other  co-operative  periodicals  must  be 
mentioned  :  the  Scottish  Co-operator,  revived  in  1894 
— a  weekly  paper ;  the  Wheatsheaf,  a  monthly  publi- 
cation of  the  Co-operative  Wholesale  Society,  1896,  and 
locaUsed  by  many  societies  ;  the  Irish  Homestead,  the 
weekly  organ  of  the  Irish  Agricultural  Organisation 
Society ;  Co-partnership,  the  monthly  organ  of  the 
Co-partnership  and  Productive  Movement ;  and  the 
Mitigate  Monthly,  a  co-operative  magazine  belonging 
to  the  Wholesale  Society. 

By  the  agencies  of  the  Co-operative  News  and  the 
Edinburgh  Co-operative  Congress  of  1883,  the  Women's 
Co-operative  Guild — an  invaluable  educational  society 
— was  brought  into  being  by  Mrs.  A.  D.  Acland  and 
Mrs.  Lawrenson.  It  started  with  seven  members  in 
April  1883,  and  after  the  Congress  its  membership 
rose  to  fifty.  The  last  annual  report  (1910-11)  of  the 
Guild  gives  number  of  branches  at  358,  shows  an  increase 
of  membership  to  the  extent  of  1004,  and  gives  a  total 
membership  of  29,928.  The  Women's  Co-operative 
Guild  has  been  pecuUarly  blessed  in  its  officers.  Mrs. 
Acland,  the  first  secretary,  was  succeeded  by  Miss  Allen 
(Mrs.  Redfeam),  Mrs.  Lawrenson,  and  Miss  Llewelyn 
Da  vies  ;  and  Miss  Llewelyn  Da  vies  has  been  the  devoted 
secretary  to  the  Guild  since  1889.  It  is  an  Interesting 
sign  of  the  change  in  the  pubUc  activities  of  women 
that  at  the  formation  of  the  Guild — only  twenty-eight 
years  ago — Mrs.  Acland  deprecated  any  "  speaking  on 
platforms,  or  thrusting  themselves  on  to  the  manage- 
ment committees  "  by  women.     Mrs.  Lawrenson,  Miss 


HISTORICAL  25 

Reddish,  Mrs.  Benjamin  Jones  and  others  qviickly 
proved  that  "  speaking  on  platforms  "  was  a  task  that 
was  eminently  necessary  if  women  were  to  be  aroused 
to  an  active  interest  in  co-operation.  Women  now  sit 
on  many  co-operative  committees  and  are  elected  as 
delegates  to  the  Co-operative  Congress  and  to  the 
quarterly  meetings  of  the  Wholesale  Society,  and  the 
Women's  Guild  is  not  only  busy  with  an  agitation  for 
a  minimum  wage  for  all  co-operative  employees,  but 
is  actively  concerned  in  the  demand  for  the  poUtical 
enfranchisement  of  women. 

The  business  side  of  life  is  always  apt  to  banish 
finer  considerations  of  conduct,  and  the  work  of  the 
Co-operative  Congress,  the  Co-operative  Union,  the 
Co-operative  News,  and  the  Women's  Co-operative 
Guild  is  a  constant  reminder  to  all  co-operators  that 
no  great  social  movement  can  thrive  unless  it  is  rooted 
in  justice  and  its  face  is  ever  set  towards  the  glittering 
spires  of  the  City  of  God. 


CHAPTER   III 

CO-OPERATIVE   DISTRIBUTION 

The  Co-operative  Society  an  Object-lesson  in  Democi"acy — Manager, 
Committee,  and  Members — Increase  of  Trade  and  Decrease  of 
Societies — Concentration  of  Capital — The  London  Suburbs — The 
test  of  Co-operative  Health — EducatioDal  Work — Overlapping. 

The  self-governing  Industrial  Co-operative  Society  with 
its  distributive  store  is  an  object-lesson  in  democracy 
— one  of  the  many  object-lessons  for  students  of  popular 
government.  In  especial  it  claims  attention  from  those 
who  confess  lugubriously  a  despair  of  democracy. 

By  no  means  an  absolute  democracy  is  the  Co-opera- 
tive Distributive  Society,  for  common  law  and  the 
statutes  of  Imperial  ParUament  impose  their  autho- 
rity, and  co-operators  enjoying  legal  protection  against 
evil-doers  must  in  return  submit  to  the  restrictions  of 
the  law.  The  impulse  to  get  rid  of  an  unpopular 
member  cannot  be  gratified,  the  hasty  or  arbitrary 
dismissal  of  an  employee  of  the  society  is  not  per- 
mitted, the  very  rules  and  financial  arrangements  of 
the  co-operative  society  are  subject  to  the  approval 
of  the  Board  of  Trade.  Within  the  co-operative  move- 
ment itself,  too,  rests  an  authority  demanding  alle- 
giance from  all  good  co-operators.  The  Central  Board 
exists  for  the  settlement  of  inter-society  disputes,  and 
the  Co-operative  Congress  exercises  at  least  some  moral 
rule  over  societies.  Neither  the  Central  Board  nor  the 
Congress  can  compel  a  store  to  put  up  its  shutters  or 
the  members  of  a  recalcitrant  society  to  disband,  but 
they  can  exclude  a  society  that  persists  in  disobedience 

26 


CO-OPERATIVE    DISTRIBUTION        27 

to  the  general  Mill  of  co-operators  from  membership 
in  the  Congress,  from  representation  on  the  Central 
Board,  and  from  any  recognition  as  a  genuine  co-opera- 
tive society. 

Membership  in  a  local  co-operative  society  is 
commonly  open  to  all  persons  of  the  age  of  twenty-one 
who  are  of  decent  character.  A  shilling  entrance-fee 
is  required — though  mainly  through  the  efforts  of  the 
Women's  Co-operative  Gmld  this  entrance-fee  has  been 
reduced  to  6d.  and  3d.  by  some  societies,  and  totally 
abolished  by  others — on  appHcation  for  membership, 
and  a  £1  share  must  be  taken  up.  If  the  dividend  on 
purchases  is  allowed  to  accumulate  in  the  society  until 
it  totals  £1,  the  share  money  is  thus  paid  without  making 
any  demand  on  the  weekly  earnings  of  the  co-operator. 
Otherwise  just  as  one  shilling  is  a  prohibitive  entrance- 
fee  to  the  very  poor,  so  is  the  £1  share  prohibitive  to 
thousands  of  hard-working  people. 

The  general  rule  of  open  admission  can  be  and  is 
restricted  by  the  special  rules  of  certain  societies,  which 
forbid  more  than  one  member  of  a  household  to  join, 
and  only  allow  joint  membership  to  husband  and  wife 
and  not  individual  membership.  Another  form  of  this 
restriction  declares  that  either  the  husband  or  wife  may 
become  a  member  but  not  both  in  the  same  society. 

While  membership  in  the  co-operative  society,  these 
restrictions  noted,  is  practically  open  to  every  grown-up 
person  of  sane  mind  and  honest  life  who  can  pay  a 
shilling,  all  and  simdry  may  purchase  at  the  store,  and 
many  societies  pay  a  dividend  on  the  purchases  made 
by  no n- members. 

Representative  government  is  naturally  the  instru- 
ment of  democracy  in  the  co-operative  movement,  for 
the  political  genius  of  the  British  people  has,  from  the 
Middle  Ages,  fastened  on  representative  government  as 
the  ideal  thing  in  the  management  of  affairs,  and  has 


28  CO-OPERATION 

popularised  it  throughout  the  worid.  So  that  not  only 
do  Englishmen  invariably  elect  a  committee  for  every 
piece  of  work  on  hand,  but  their  example  is  eagerly 
followed  by  every  nation  seeking  democracy. 

The  members  of  a  co-operative  society,  then,  must 
always  elect  a  committee  of  management,  and  will  do 
so  by  ballot  of  members,  finding  this  a  better  way  than 
the  earUer  custom  of  making  the  election  at  a  general 
meeting  of  members.  Certain  persons  are  disquahfied 
by  most  societies  from  election  for  various  reasons  :  by 
holding  a  paid  office  in  the  society,  or  having  relatives 
employed  by  the  society  ;  by  bankruptcy  ;  by  failure 
to  purchase  a  specified  amount  of  goods  at  the  store, 
or  holding  less  than  a  specified  number  of  shares ;  by 
too  short  a  period  of  membership. 

In  the  hands  of  the  duly  elected  committee  is  the 
control  of  the  society's  business,  the  appointment  of 
the  manager  of  the  store,  and  the  engagement  of  other 
employees  and  the  decision  as  to  the  rate  of  wages  to 
be  paid. 

An  educational  conmiittee  is  also  elected,  and  the 
work  of  this  committee  is  to  spend  what  money  is 
allotted  to  it  on  lectures,  conferences,  and  similarly 
instructive  purposes. 

The  employee  of  a  co-operative  society  may,  as  an 
ordinary  member  of  the  society,  vote  at  the  election 
of  the  conunittee,  otherwise  he  is  as  rigorously  excluded, 
and  as  wisely,  from  taking  part  in  the  government  of 
the  society  as  the  civil  servant  is  excluded  from  imperial 
pontics.  For  many  years  past  there  has  been  a  minimum 
wage  agitation  in  the  co-operative  movement,  an  agita- 
tion conducted  with  steady  pertinacity  by  the  leaders 
of  the  Women's  Co-operative  Guild,  and  a  trade  union — 
the  Amalgamated  Union  of  Co-operative  Employees 
— exists  to  secure  fair  conditions  of  labour  for  all  in 
the  employment  of  co-operators. 


CO-OPERATIVE    DISTRIBUTION         29 

Dissatisfaction  is,  of  course,  expressed  at  the  rates  of 
wages  paid  by  some  of  the  co-operative  societies,  and 
occasionally  strikes  take  place.  But  there  is  a  close 
connection  between  trade  unionists  and  co-operators, 
for  the  co-operative  workman  is  commonly  a  trade 
unionist — and  the  Joint  Committee  of  Trade  Unionists 
and  Co-operators  is  always  in  readiness  to  adjust  diffi- 
culties and  arbitrate  on  matters  in  dispute. 

On  the  whole  co-operators  justly  rank  themselves 
amongst  the  good  employers  ;  for  they  were  pioneers 
of  the  weekly  half-holiday  for  shop-assistants,  and,  in 
spite  of  the  temptation  to  cut  down  all  working  expenses 
for  the  sake  of  the  members'  dividend,  every  well- 
conducted  society  pays  at  least  the  standard  rate  of 
wages  and  is  content  ^dth  a  shorter  working  day  than 
that  of  the  average  small  shopkeeper. 

In  the  large  manufacturing  towns  of  staple  industry 
the  co-operative  society  finds  its  most  fruitful  soil  and 
flourishes  accordingly.  In  London  and  in  rural  Eng- 
land the  co-operator  has  many  difficulties  to  overcome, 
difficulties  which  are  now  non-existent  in  the  manu- 
facturing districts. 

A  glance  at  the  reports  for  1911  from  the  various 
sections  reveals  the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  co- 
operative movement. 

The  IVIidland  Section,  covering  Northampton,  Welling- 
borough, Kettering,  Leicester,  Coventry,  Birmingham, 
StafEord,  Derby,  Nottingham,  and  Lincoln,  has  223 
societies  and  344,656  members. 

The  Northern  Section — Northimiberland,  Cumber- 
land, Westmoreland,  Durham,  and  the  North  Riding — 
143  societies  and  315,670  members. 

The  North- Western  Section — Lancashire,  Cheshire, 
the  West  and  East  Ridings  of  Yorkshire,  and  North 
Wales — 466  societies  and  1,071,217  members. 

The  Southern  Section — London,  Kent,  Sussex,  Hants, 


30  CO-OPERATION 

Wilts,  Dorset,  Oxford,  Bucks,  Cambridge,  Bedford, 
Norfolk,  Essex,  and  Suffolk — 211  societies  and  404,968 
members,  and  more  than  half  of  these  members  belong 
to  the  60  societies  in  the  Metropolitan  area.  The  South- 
Western  Section — Cornwall,  Devon,  and  Somerset — has 
78  societies  and  803,844  members ;  while  the  Western 
Section — Gloucester,  Hereford,  Monmouth,  South  and 
West  Wales — has  96  societies  and  87,716  members.  It 
is  a  similar  state  of  things  in  Scotland.  The  Scottish 
Section  has  288  societies  and  418,047  members,  and 
the  Glasgow,  Perth,  Dundee  and  Aberdeen  districts 
easily  account  for  more  than  half  the  total  membership. 
In  Ireland  with  26  distributive  societies,  even  in  Belfast 
there  are  only  9200  members.  But  Ireland  has  its  own 
Agricultural  Co-operative  Movement,  which  is  dealt 
with  elsewhere. 

The  returns  from  the  sections  show  increase  of 
membership,  increase  of  trade,  and  increase  in  number 
of  persons  employed,  but  they  also  show  a  decrease  in 
the  number  of  societies.  Not  a  striking  decrease 
certainly — only  a  matter  of  26  societies  in  the  whole 
of  the  United  Kingdom — but  still  there  it  is,  and  the 
fact  is  significant. 

For  these  26  defunct  societies  have  not  put  up  their 
shutters  in  despair  or  gone  into  liquidation ;  they  have 
either  become  absorbed  into  a  larger  co-operative 
society,  or  have  amalgamated  with  some  neighbouring 
society  of  like  estate. 

The  concentration  of  capital  goes  on  apace,  not  only 
in  the  commerce  of  retail  shop-keeping,  but  also  in  the 
commerce  of  the  co-operator.  The  vast  general  stores 
of  the  limited  hability  companies  press  with  ever- 
increasing  force  on  the  petty  retailer  and  steadily  drive 
him  out  of  the  market-place ;  and  the  small  struggling 
co-operative  society,  its  existence  equally  threatened, 
finds  it  the  better  plan  to  join  forces  with  a  strong 


CO-OPERATIVE    DISTRIBUTION        31 

society.  Indeed  it  must  do  so  in  many  places,  or  else 
go  under. 

What  chance  has  the  small  retail  shop  against  the 
Universal  Stores,  Limited  ?  And  what  chance  has  the 
small  co-operative  store  ? 

The  tendency  is,  then,  for  a  well-established  co-opera- 
tive society  to  enlarge  the  area  of  its  trade  by  opening 
new  branches ;  and  co-operators,  fully  aware  of  the  com- 
petition in  retail  trade,  wisely  seek  rather  to  strengthen 
their  position  by  this  proceeding  than  by  challenging 
destiny  by  the  creation  of  new  societies.  In  London 
this  development  can  be  seen  very  plainly,  and  what 
is  happening  in  the  London  district  is  happening  similarly 
elsewhere.  No  one  attempts  to  start  a  new  co-operative 
society  in  London  to-day ;  but  on  the  east  the  Strat- 
ford Society  stretches  out  with  its  new  branches  over 
Poplar  and  westward,  while  the  West  London  Society 
advances  east  from  Hammersmith,  the  Edmonton 
Society  looks  southward  over  Tottenham  and  Stamford 
Hill,  and  the  Woolwich  J  rsenal  Society  is  ready  to 
conquer  all  South-East  London. 

In  each  of  these  districts,  Stratford,  Hammersmith, 
Edmonton,  and  Woolwich,  the  population  is  far  steadier 
than  in  most  of  the  industrial  quarters  of  London,  and 
there  is  permanent  work  for  mechanics  and  artisans — 
the  men  who  are  the  very  backbone  of  the  co-opera- 
tive movement.  The  shifty  population  so  conspicuous 
in  London,  the  people  who  very  often  through  changed 
circumstances  of  employment  first  started  moving,  and 
now  seem  positively  imable  to  resist  a  move  every  few 
years,  or  oftener,  are  not  drawn  to  co-operation.  They 
are  too  nomadic  to  be  lured  by  the  appeals  of  economy 
or  thrift.  The  enormous  middle-class  population,  too, 
of  the  suburbs  looks  coldly  on  so  democratic  a  thing  as 
a  co-operative  store.  The  wealthier  of  the  middle -class 
of  course  avail  themselves  of  the  advantages  of  the  big 


32  CO-OPERATION 

joint-stock  company  stores,  and  only  deal  with  local 
tradesmen  when  there  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  dealing 
at  the  stores.  But  the  clerks  of  the  suburbs  are  cut 
ofi  from  the  economies  that  richer  folk  practise,  and 
shrink  from  the  responsibiUty  of  a  co-operative  society 
in  their  neighbourhood. 

The  workmen  planned  co-operative  societies  and  set 
them  up  when  their  day's  work  was  finished,  and  gave 
enthusiastically  of  their  leisure  to  the  co-operative  pro- 
paganda. It  is  very  difficult  to  find  such  initiative  or 
such  public-spirited  enthusiasm  in  middle-class  familias 
living  on  a  weekly  income  of  something  between  £2 
and  £5.  The  middle-class  men  and  women  of  the  more 
enlightened  type  will  give  their  leisure  to  a  local  hterary 
society,  where  the  more  enlightened  of  the  working 
people  give  it  to  co-operation,  and  other  democratic 
causes. 

Chiefly  a  want  of  initiative  keeps  the  London  middle- 
class  out  of  co-operation,  but  a  feeling  of  class  pride 
is  also  responsible  for  the  aloofness.  A  third  reason 
is  the  existing  indebtedness  to  the  tradesmen  of  the 
neighbourhood  ;  for  the  London  suburbs  are  as  full  of 
tradesmen's  debts  as  the  slums  are,  and  the  dwellers 
in  both  slums  and  suburbs  have  that  pronounced 
aversion  from  cash  payments  commonly  found  amongst 
debtors. 

Though  not  exclusively  peculiar  to  the  London 
suburbs,  this  middle-class  weakness — a  compound  of 
snobbishness,  social  timidity,  and  personal  indolence — 
does  not  afflict  the  clerks,  managers,  and  elementary 
school  teachers  of  the  northern  counties  to  the  same 
effect,  and  the  co-operative  movement  has  many  stout 
supporters  in  those  counties  who  do  not  labour  at  the 
bench  or  m  the  factory. 

Given  a  congenial  neighbourhood  the  success  of  the 
co-operative  store  will  depend  largely  on  the  ability  of 


CO-OPERATIVE    DISTRIBUTION        33 

its  managers,  and  the  choice  of  this  manager  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  committee,  who  in  their  turn  are  elected 
by  all  the  members  of  the  local  society.  It  is  not 
sufficient  that  the  committee  should  make  a  wise  choice. 
The  manager  must  be  backed  up,  and  must  feel  that 
in  the  committee  he  has  a  sensible  and  alert  body 
of  directors.  Loyalty  on  both  sides  is  essential.  A 
manager  being  human  may  err,  and  with  the  best  faith 
in  the  world,  bring  a  society  to  ruin  unless  the  com- 
mittee are  awake  to  the  needful  exercise  of  discretion. 
A  committee,  on  the  other  hand,  troubled  by  doubt, 
or  of  mean  spirit,  may  cramp  and  discourage  the  activity 
of  a  good  manager.  Loyalty  on  both  sides  fully  appre- 
ciated will  prevent  disaster.  The  manager  will  not 
resent  ad^dce,  and  the  committee  will  support  their 
manager  whole-heartedly  without  shrinking  from  dis- 
suading him  from  what  may  seem  rash  courses,  when 
all  put  the  success  of  co-operation  before  personal 
advantage. 

But  a  good  sensible  committee  means  plenty  of 
common  sense,  and  pubUc  spirit  in  the  members  who 
elect  the  committee.  Indifference  and  distrust  damp 
the  ardour  of  elected  representatives  whether  in  a 
co-operative  society  or  elsewhere.  The  poUcy  of  a 
committee  is  inevitably,  and  quite  properly,  influenced 
by  the  general  opinion  of  the  members.  And  while  it 
is  the  function  of  a  committee  to  act  solely  for  the  best 
interests  of  the  society,  braving  if  need  be  ill-considered 
expressions  of  disapproval,  and  suffering  displacement 
before  consenting  to  any  treachery  to  co-operative 
principle,  the  average  committee  prefers  to  remain  on 
good  terms  with  its  members,  even  when  those  members 
shake  their  heads  at  enterprise  and  resent  generous 
innovations. 

The  treatment  of  employees  and  expenditure  on 
education  are  two  matters  where  the  general  opinion 

c 


84  CO-OPERATION 

of  members  counts  for  much.  A  co-operative  society 
whose  members  make  the  earning  of  a  dividend  for 
purchasers  the  beginning  and  end  of  co-operation  will 
care  Httle  what  wages  are  paid  in  the  store  and  what 
hours  are  worked  by  the  persons  employed  therein. 
In  such  a  society  wages  may  even  be  lower  than  in  a 
private  shop,  and  the  hours  of  work  longer,  for  all  the 
members  care. 

It  is  difficult  for  a  store  manager  to  deal  with  the 
CJo-operative  Wholesale  Society  to  the  full  extent  desir- 
able if  members,  and  in  especial  committee  men,  en- 
courage a  policy  of  buying  elsewhere  cheaper  and 
inferior  articles  that  may  give  a  larger  profit  on  sales, 
and  therefore  a  bigger  dividend  to  purchasers.  The 
sale  of  pure  and  unadulterated  goods  made  under  fair 
conditions  of  labour  is  one  of  the  permanent  objects 
of  co-operation,  and  those  who  call  for  cheap  goods, 
careless  of  quality  and  of  the  producer,  with  an  eye 
only  on  the  dividend,  are  false  to  the  whole  co-opera- 
tive principle. 

Moreover,  with  such  un-co-operative  co-operators  for 
his  committee  and  his  customers,  a  manager  is  tempted 
to  become  utterly  cynical,  and  in  gratifying  the  base 
desires  of  those  who  employ  him,  to  make  friends  of 
the  mammon  of  unrighteousness.  The  travellers  of 
many  firms  must  get  orders  or  perish,  and  the  store 
manager  finds  it  worth  his  while  to  stock  aU  sorts  of 
shoddy  goods  when  the  co-oi)erative  society  members 
are  of  shoddy  mind. 

It  is  not  to  be  suggested  for  a  moment  that  the 
average  co-operative  society  and  its  manager  are  in 
this  parlous  state.  The  Wholesale  would  not  stand 
where  it  does,  and  societies  would  not  flourish,  if  the 
movement  were  not  sound  at  the  core.  But  local 
societies  have  been  known  to  despise  principle  for  the 
sake  of  apparent  gain,  and  managers  have  been  found 


CO-OPERATIVE    DISTRIBUTION        35 

faithJess  to  their  trust.  Hence  the  need  for  timely 
warning.  A  committee  with  the  best  co-operative  will 
in  the  world  are  powerless  if  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
society,  for  instance,  seek  only  the  cheapest  goods  at 
the  store,  and  purchase  at  a  rival  retail  shop  every 
article  marked  a  farthing  cheaper  than  the  store  price. 
Many  an  attempt  has  been  made  in  the  past  to  ruin 
a  co-operative  store  by  an  agreement  amongst  trades- 
men to  imdersell  the  store  in  various  commodities. 
Then  the  custom  having  been  lured  from  the  store, 
and  the  store  brought  to  an  end,  prices  promptly 
return  to  their  old  level. 

A  society  of  convinced  co-operators  will  buy  all  they 
need  at  their  own  store  and  scorn  the  temptations  of 
the  non-co-operative  trader,  and  their  manager  vdU  be 
equally  strong  on  getting  aU  the  goods  his  customers 
require  from  the  Wholesale  Society.  A  sure  test  of 
the  health  of  a  co-operative  society  is  the  amount  of 
its  trade  with  the  Wholesale. 

Besides  the  questions  of  fair  wages  for  the  store 
employees  and  the  sale  of  the  Wholesale  Societies' 
productions,  there  is  the  question  of  expenditure  on 
education. 

On  the  business  side  all  may  be  satisfactory,  but 
what  is  the  local  committee  spending  on  education  ? 
What  is  it  doing  for  the  spread  of  co-operative  prin- 
ciples ?  For  the  building  up  of  its  own  members  in 
the  co-operative  faith  ? 

The  answer  to  these  questions  is  another  test  of  health. 

What  if  the  dividend  is  Is.  8d.  when  it  might  have 
been  Is.  9d.,  or  25.  dd.  when  it  might  have  been  2s.  id. 
or  even  half  a  crown  ?  If  the  difference  is  due  to 
expenditure  on  education,  on  lectures  or  conferences, 
the  money  has  been  well  spent,  and  the  members  may 
congratulate  themselves.  The  mean  and  niggardly 
spirit  that  decries  all  missionary  effort  and  despises  all 


86  CO-OPERATION 

that  does  not  show  a  profit  of  gold  and  silver  in  the 
balance-sheet,  is  as  fatal  in  the  co-operative  movement 
as  in  any  other  good  cause. 

The  stronger  the  society  the  more  it  will  spend  on 
education,  and  the  wealoiess  of  co-operators  is  never 
more  clearly  revealed  than  in  the  blank  spot  in  the 
annual  returns  under  the  "  Educational  Purposes " 
column. 

Yet  society  after  society  may  be  found  admittuig 
a  stem  refusal  to  spend  a  penny  on  education,  and  the 
name  of  every  such  society  is  published  in  the  annual 
report  of  the  Co-operative  Congress. 

True,  there  are  often  local  obstacles  to  educational 
work  that  only  those  who  hve  in  the  place  can  under- 
stand. This  must  be  freely  admitted.  But  co-oj^era- 
tive  literature  can  always  be  circulated  amongst  members 
and  non-members,  and  every  society  can  make  a  point 
of  buying  and  selling  the  weekly  Co-operative  Neivs  or 
the  Millgate  Monthly  or  the  Wheatsheaf.  All  these 
three  periodicals  have  a  healthy  circulation,  and  the 
Wheatsheaf  localised  by  many  societies  has  an  enormous 
sale.  Nevertheless,  there  are  stUl  societies  to  be  found 
whose  members  are  content  to  know  nothing  of  the 
general  work  of  co-operators,  and  equally  content  that 
their  neighbours  should  be  as  they  are. 

A  good  committee  will  insist  on  the  sale  of  the  official 
organ  of  co-operation  at  the  store,  and  if  the  committee 
is  too  sluggish  to  see  that  this  is  done,  then  members 
must  arise  and  teach  the  committee  its  duty  in  the 
matter. 

For  when  all  is  said  and  done,  it  is  the  lively  prin- 
ciples and  good  sense  of  the  members  that  alone  guarantee 
lasting  success  for  a  co-operative  society. 

Ment^'on  has  been  made  of  the  decrease  of  societies 
by  absorption  and  amalgamation,  and  a  word  must 
be  added  on  overlapping. 


CO-OPERATIVE    DISTRIBUTION        37 

Every  year  there  is  friction  between  societies,  and 
wasteful  competition,  particularly  the  custom  of  a 
newly  developed  neighbourhood.  Agreements  may  be 
made  and  adhered  to,  and  hmits  of  area  imposed.  But 
the  real  remedy  for  overlapping  is  the  amalgamation 
of  societies,  and  when  disputes  arise  as  to  the  rival 
claims  of  societies  for  new  territories,  it  is  a  sure  sign 
that  the  time  is  ripe  for  amalgamation.  The  wise  in 
each  of  the  rival  societies  will  lay  their  heads  together 
and  shape  terms  of  agreement  before  actual  friction 
arises,  and  they  wiU  not  rest  imtil  the  disputants  have 
become  one  common  society,  and  the  scandal  of  co- 
operators  competing  with  co-operators  in  trade  is 
ended. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CO-OPERATIVE   PRODUCTION 

The  Wholesale  Societies — Self-governing  Productive  Societies — 
Difficulties — The  Co-operative  Productive  Federation — The  Ideal 
of  the  self-govemiDg  Workshop. 

The  great  bulk  of  goods  produced  in  the  co-operative 
movement  come  from  the  productive  departments  of 
the  English  and  Scottish  Wholesale  Societies ;  but  in 
the  textile  trade,  in  the  manufacture  of  boots  and 
leather,  in  the  building,  the  printing,  and  the  metal 
trades,  co-operative  societies  of  workmen  still  exist,  and 
these  societies  conduct  their  businesses  successfully  on 
the  lines  of  the  old  self-governing  workshops  of  the 
Christian  Socialists,  paying  interest  on  loan  capital  and 
portioning  their  profits  not  amongst  customers  but 
amongst  producers. 

By  comparison  both  the  trade  and  the  niunber  of 
persons  employed  are  small  when  the  returns  of  the 
Wholesale  Societies  are  examined. 

For  instance,  in  1911  the  productive  societies  of  Eng- 
land and  Wales  had  6829  persons  employed  and  a  trade 
of  £2,413,423,  while  the  Enghsh  Wholesale  had  16,038 
persons  employed  and  a  trade  of  £6,834,354. 

In  Scotland  in  1911  the  productive  societies  employed 
2209  persons  for  a  trade  of  £878,643,  and  the  Scottish 
Wholesale  5553  persons  for  a  trade  of  £2,344,995. 

But  the  employees  in  the  productive  departments  of 
the  Wholesale  Societies  are  really  engaged  in  the  manu- 
facture of  goods  for  the  distributive  market,  and  have 
no    more   responsibility   for   the    management    of    the 


CO-OPERATIVE    PRODUCTION  39 

factory  they  work  in  than  the  employees  in  any  ordinary 
business.  They  are  not  required  to  be  members  of  a 
co-operative  society,  and  only  in  the  event  of  such 
membership  or  as  customers  at  a  retail  store  do  they 
take  any  share  in  the  profits. 

Membership  in  the  English  Co-operative  Wholesale, 
it  has  been  already  mentioned,  is  confined  to  societies ; 
and  in  Scotland,  where  personal  as  well  as  society 
membership  is  allowed,  only  559  employees  are  share- 
holders in  the  Wholesale. 

The  employee  in  the  Wholesale  productive  depart- 
ments, then,  by  joining  a  local  retail  co-operative 
society  can  enjoy  his  dividend  on  goods  purchased, 
but  he  possesses  no  advantage  in  this  respect  over  his 
fellows,  and  comes  into  the  society  as  an  ordinary 
member  of  the  British  pubhc. 

Turning  to  the  self-governing  productive  societies, 
we  find,  as  in  the  case  of  the  distributive  societies,  a 
decrease  in  numbers.  But  the  decrease  here  is  larger 
and  more  marked.  The  125  productive  societies  exist- 
ing in  1903  have  shrunk  to  95  in  1912.  In  some  cases 
the  society  has  been  absorbed  into  the  English  Whole- 
sale, and  in  other  cases  commonly  a  small  and  struggling 
society  has  succumbed  under  economic  pressure. 

In  spite  of  the  many  discouraging  failures,  new  pro- 
ductive societies — especially  in  the  printing  trade — 
continue  to  come  into  existence,  and  the  trade  of  many 
of  the  well-established  societies  steadily  increases,  "  so 
that  the  volume  of  production  under  co-partnership 
conditions  within  the  co-operative  movement  is  larger 
year  by  year.  ...  It  may  be  that  the  future  of  co- 
partnership production  within  the  co-operative  move- 
ment will  depend  on  the  growth  of  the  best  of  the 
existing  societies  rather  than  on  the  creation  of  new 
ones  :  it  may  be,  on  the  other  hand,  that  certain  classes 
of  societies  will  multiply  and  not  others.  ...  At  any 


40  CO-OPERATION 

rate  it  is  certain  that  the  totals  of  our  trade  and  profits, 
and  the  number  of  workers  who  have  the  benefit  of 
the  co-partnership  of  labour,  do  steadily  increase  both 
within  the  co-operative  movement  and  without."  ^ 

This  word  "  co-partnership  "  is  now  generally  used 
to  describe  a  productive  co-operative  business  where 
interest  is  paid  on  capital.  A  productive  society  con- 
ducted on  co-partnership  principles  can  afl^ate  to  the 
Co-operative  Union,  and  is  recognised  as  being  in  every 
way  within  the  co-operative  movement. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  title  of  co-partnership  is  also 
given  to  many  and  various  limited  habihty  companies 
that  pay  a  bonus  on  wages  and  allot  shares  to  workmen 
employed,  and  these  co-partnership  societies  are  without 
the  co-operative  movement. 

The  distinction  can  be  grasped.  A  body  of  workmen 
engaged  in  production,  appointing  their  o^^^l  manager, 
drawing  up  their  own  rules  of  work,  pay  wiUingly  for 
the  loan  of  capital,  and  their  society  is  a  genuine  self- 
governing  co-operative  society. 

In  the  co-partnership  society  without  the  movement 
the  management  is  not  in  the  hands  of  the  workmen 
employed,  and  save  for  the  bonus  on  wages  or  the 
allotment  of  shares  the  business  is  conducted  on  ordi- 
nary commercial  lines  for  the  profit  of  the  shareholders. 

But  this  outside  co-partnership  touches  closely  in 
certain  cases  the  co-operative  principle,  and  must  be 
dealt  with  separately. 

Our  immediate  concern  is  with  those  co-partnership 
productive  societies  which  are  recognised  as  co-operative. 

How  does  such  a  society  come  into  being  ? 

"A  group  of  workers  in  a  given  trade,  let  us  say 

they  are  printers — probably  they  are  also  members  of 

the  local  co-operative  distributive  society — not  satisfied 

to   remain   permanently  wage-servants,  meet  together 

'  Aneurin  Williams,  Co-partnerthtp  in  1910. 


CO-OPERATIVE    PRODUCTION  41 

to  organise  a  co-operative  workshop  for  themselves  and 
those  whom  they  may  afterwards  take  in  to  work  with 
them.  They  put  together  a  few  poimds  each  towards 
capital,  get  sympathisers  of  their  acquaintance  to  do 
the  like,  and  perhaps  obtain  similar  supjKtrt  from 
organisations  such  as  trade  unions  and  workmen's 
co-operative  societies  :  these  are  probably  also  their 
chief  customers.  So  they  work  on,  every  man  interested 
in  the  profit — if  there  be  one — and  those  who  are  share- 
holders interested  also  in  the  loss.  Probably  they  begin 
in  a  very  small  way.  By  and  by,  it  may  be,  their  trade 
grows  to  five,  ten,  fifty  thousand  pounds.^  Still,  every 
new  worker  has  a  share  in  the  profit,  and  an  equal 
chance  of  becoming  a  member."  2 

But  does  this  "  equal  chance  of  becoming  a  member  " 
always  exist  in  fact  ?  It  is  essential  to  a  genuine  co- 
partnership society,  but  in  earher  years  it  too  often 
happened,  chiefly  through  imperfect  rules,  that  the 
original  shareholders  became  a  Httle  group  of  masters, 
and  newcomers  were  not  admitted  to  membership. 
The  important  thing  is  to  secure  the  right  of  member- 
ship to  every  employee  by  having  it  firmly  stated  in 
the  rules  of  the  society. 

The  difficulties  that  beset  a  productive  society  are 
many,  and  are  mainly  at  the  outset. 

"  Discipline  must  be  maintained  in  every  organisa- 
tion, and  it  has  sometimes  proved  not  easy  to  maintain 
discipline  where  every  man  has  felt  himself  to  be  one 
of  the  owners  of  the  place,  relieved  (as  he  may  have 
fooHshly  thought)  from  the  obedience  of  a  wage  servant. 
The  position  of  manager  over  men  who,  as  shareholders, 
have  the  ultimate  voice  in  the  affairs  of  the  society  has 

^  The  trade  of  the  Manchester  Printers'  Society  (founded  1869) 
was  £90,123  in  1910,  and  that  of  the  Leicester  Printers  (founded 
1892)  £11,914. 

*  C.  Webb,  Industrial  Co-operation. 


42  CO-OPERATION 

not  always  been  easy ;  and  it  is  not  always  easy  for 
working-men  to  see  the  necessity  for  paying  a  manager 
liberally  and  securing  a  man  of  special  ability  for  the 
work.  Trouble  often  arises  from  a  want  of  business 
knowledge,  from  insufficiency  of  capital,  and  from  the 
difficulty  of  obtaining  custom.  But  all  these  things 
apply  principally  to  the  eariy  days  of  a  society.  Once 
it  has  become  established  they  are  felt  less ;  business 
knowledge  is  acquired  as  time  goes  on  ;  the  importance 
of  management  is  recognised  ;  capital  comes  in  as  soon 
as  it  has  been  shown  that  its  position  is  safe ;  a  trade 
connection  is  in  course  of  time  got  together,  more 
especially  among  the  distributive  societies  ;  and  workers, 
if  they  have  not  at  first  reaUsed  it,  learn  the  necessity 
of  discipline  and  subordination.  At  any  rate,  if  these 
matters  do  not  work  out  well,  it  means  that  the  society 
does  not  become  estabUshed  but  fails  in  its  infancy. 
It  is  the  starting  of  a  co-partnership  business  which 
presents  the  real  difficulties,  but  happily  in  a  large  and 
increasing  proportion  of  cases,  these  difficulties  are  over- 
come and  success  is  attained."  ^ 

The  foundation  of  the  Co-operative  Productive 
Federation  in  1882  gave  valuable  assistance  to  the 
productive  societies.  Fifty-nine  of  these  societies  are 
now  in  the  Federation,  and  each  society  is  required  to 
take  up  a  £1  share  for  every  five  of  its  members.  To 
open  up  a  market  for  the  sale  of  the  goods  of  produc- 
tive societies,  to  secure  capital  for  co-operative  pro- 
duction, and  to  assist  productive  societies  through 
united  action,  are  the  objects  of  the  Federation.  Loan 
capital  receives  4  per  cent,  interest,  and  the  money  is 
invested  in  one  of  the  productive  societies.  In  the 
matter  of  obtaining  capital  for  satisfactory  societies  the 
Federation  has  achieved  very  considerable  success,  and 

^  C.  Webb,  IndvMrial  Co-operation. 


w 


CO-OPERATIVE    PRODUCTION  43 

it  has  done  much  to  promote  unity  amongst  the  pro- 
ductive societies,  and  to  bring  before  the  public  the 
high  quaHty  of  the  goods  produced. 

But  the  trouble  of  competition  between  the  various 
producing  societies  has  not  yet  been  entirely  removed. 

On  the  educational  side  the  Labour  Co-partnership 
Association — ^formed  in  1883  as  the  Labour  Association 
to  "  promote  co-operative  production  based  on  the 
co-partnership  of  the  workers  " — has  been  steadily  at 
work,  enlisting  sympathy,  arousing  attention,  and 
strengthening  existing  societies.  Its  work  is  propa- 
ganda, and  it  is  not  a  trading  association. 

Co-partnership,  a  penny  monthly,  the  organ  of  the 
Labour  Co-partnership  Association,  deals  with  co- 
partnership both  within  and  without  the  co-operative 
movement,  and  has  been  in  existence  for  many 
years.  The  annual  festival  and  exhibition  of  co-partner- 
ship productions  at  the  Crystal  Palace  has  for  the  past 
twenty-five  years  been  organised  by  the  Association. 

Apart  from  agriculture,  where  co-operators  must  adopt 
methods  suitable  to  that  great  industry,  the  prospect  of 
further  advance  in  co-partnership  co-operation  seems 
distinctly  Hmited.  Old-established  societies  may  increase 
their  trade  and  their  members,  and  may  amalgamate. 
Small  societies  fighting  against  heavy  odds  cannot  hope, 
in  many  cases,  to  survive,  and  may  surrender  themselves 
into  the  hands  of  the  Co-operative  Wholesales,  or  seek 
annexation  by  a  larger  productive  society  engaged  in 
a  similar  trade.  Printers  indomitably  start  new  societies , 
but  the  days  of  creation  for  co-operative  tailoring, 
bootmaking,  and  baking  are  over.  For  a  handful  of 
earnest  enthusiasts  with  a  few  pounds  of  capital  to 
start  a  co-operative  workshop  is,  in  the  year  1912  a.d., 
to  court  destruction. 

Even  the  Rochdale  Pioneers  would  have  no  chance 
nowadays  had  they  delayed  their  start  till  the  era  of 


44  CO-OPERATION 

universal  stores,  trusts,  and  combines  was  upon  the 
world. 

But  the  ideal  of  the  self-governing  workshop  makes 
a  strong  appeal  to  many  minds,  and  the  appeal  is  not 
lessened  as  the  years  go  by.  Concentration  of  capital 
goes  on  apace,  the  centralisation  of  government  grows 
— within  the  co-operative  movement  and  without.  The 
consimier  finds  a  greater  variety  of  goods  and  a  better 
article  at  the  big  stores  than  at  the  Httle  shop.  The 
fancies  and  appetites  of  mankind  are  whetted  by  new 
products  which  the  small  shopkeeper  cannot  supply. 
The  distributive  stores  federated  together  in  the  great 
Wholesale  Societies  can  go  ahead,  ever  enlarging  the 
borders  of  their  trade  and  conquering  new  fields  of 
custom,  till  they  are  left  to  fight  it  out  with  a  few 
gigantic  private  trading  companies,  and  the  owner  of  the 
last  self-governing  retail  shop  has  put  up  his  shutters. 

In  spite  of  the  triumphs  of  the  big  industry,  obstmate 
individuals  persist  in  prolonging  the  life  of  the  small 
industry. 

A  federation  of  self-governing  co-operative  productive 
societies  with  a  market  for  their  goods  in  the  distributive 
store  and  the  warehouse  of  the  Co-operative  Wholesale, 
could  put  up  a  good  fight  for  many  years  to  come. 
Only  the  ordinary  customer  at  a  co-operative  store  can 
see  no  particular  reason  for  supporting  co-partnership 
societies,  since  they  give  no  share  of  their  profits  to  the 
consumer,  and  their  success  or  failure  vnH  not  afEect 
the  dividend.  Business  is  business,  and  the  dividend 
is  visible  as  the  reward  of  co-operative  business  for  all 
to  see.  Nobody  need  be  an  idealist  or  altruist  to  be 
an  honest  and  loyal  member  of  a  co-operative  store. 
PubUc-spirited  common  sense  is  the  great  quaUty 
required.  Yet  it  is  just  because  there  is  an  ideal  of 
an  industrial  democracy  in  the  minds  of  so  many 
co-operators,    and   because   a   vision  of   self-governing 


CO-OPERATIVE    PRODUCTION  45 

workshops  in  a  communal  state  where  the  capitalist 
shall  be  unknown  is  before  their  eyes,  that  co-operative 
productive  societies  flourish  and  endure — despite  the 
centraUsation  and  the  concentration  of  capital. 

Of  course  it  is  possible  that  capital  might  concentrate 
in  the  Productive  Federation,  but  the  signs  of  the 
times  encourage  no  such  prophecy. 

WTiatever  the  future  of  the  co-partnership  productive 
societies  this  they  have  done.  They  have  taught  the 
workmen  the  advantage  of  mutual  aid  and  the  art  of 
business  management.  They  have  fiirther  taught  him 
that  he  is  capable  of  managing  his  own  afEairs  and  the 
meaning  of  responsibiUty. 

The  ideal  of  the  self-governing  workshop  makes  by 
no  means  a  universal  appeal.  Whilst  there  are  thou- 
sands of  non-workers  who  strive  generously  to  change 
the  conditions  of  industry  so  that  the  labourer  may 
own  all  the  sources  of  production  and  be  the  sole  arbiter 
of  his  fortimes,  there  are  tens  of  thousands  of  actual 
workers  who  do  not  desire  at  all  to  have  any  responsi- 
biUty for  the  management  of  industrial  affairs,  or  to 
direct  their  own  labours.  A  fuller  life  is  desired,  better 
housmg,  shorter  hours,  permanent  employment,  and  a 
decent  living  wage,  and  larger  share  in  the  good  things 
of  this  world.   Education  has  made  such  desires  inevitable. 

But  given  kindHer  social  conditions,  the  average 
EngUsh  workman  will  leave  the  self-governing  work- 
shop to  the  idealists  and  prefer  to  labour  under  an 
employer  who  can  wisely  direct  and  command  the 
services  of  those  he  employs. 

It  was  from  France  the  EngUsh  Christian  SociaUsts 
got  the  notion  of  self-governing  productive  workshops 
in  1849,  and  it  is  in  France,  for  reasons  easily  to  be 
discerned,  that  the  self-governing  association  for  pro- 
duction would  make  an  appeal  to  the  working-class 
with  far  greater  hope  of  response  than  in  England. 


46  CO-OPERATION 

As  Robert  Owen  was  the  father  of  co-operation  in 
England,  so  Buchez  was  the  real  founder  of  French 
co-operation. 

As  far  back  as  1831,  Buchez,  a  man  of  letters,  proposed 
his  "  Method  of  Amehorating  the  Condition  of  the  Wage 
Earners  of  the  Qties  "  in  the  Journal  des  Sciences  Sociales. 

His  plan  was  that  skilled  artisans  of  certain  trades 
should  unite  together  and  form  industrial  brotherhoods, 
each  group  of  workers  electing  one  of  themselves  as  a 
director  of  their  common  labour,  and  as  their  official 
representative  in  the  business  world.  "  All  the  profits 
of  the  business  (after  paying  current  rate  of  wages) 
should  be  divided  into  two  equal  parts,  one  portion  to 
be  accumulated  as  an  unaUenable  common  fund  or 
capital,  the  remainder  to  be  divided  in  proportion  to 
the  labour  given  by  each  member,  or  set  apart  as  a 
benefit  or  educational  fund  for  wives,  widows,  and 
children.  Buchez's  leading  idea  was  the  elimination  of 
the  entrepreneur.  He  attempted  to  reaUse  in  industry 
the  triple  virtues  of  fraternity,  Uberty,  and  equality — 
fellowship  in  work,  freedom  to  elect  and  depose  at  their 
own  pleasure  the  director  of  their  labour,  and  an  abso- 
lute equality  of  right  among  the  associates.  Hence  he 
insisted  that  no  man  should  work  for  the  society  for 
more  than  a  year  without  becoming  a  member,  and 
that  the  capital  of  the  concern  should  belong  equally 
to  all  associates,  and  should  neither  be  divided  nor 
withdrawn.  By  these  means  he  imagined  that  he 
would  open  the  association  to  all  members  of  a  trade 
and  provide  for  its  continuous  existence  in  spite  of  the 
backsUding  of  individuals."  ^ 

An  association  of  jewellers  was  the  first-fruit  of 
Buchez's  propaganda.  Then  other  bodies  of  skilled 
artisans  enrolled  themselves  under  the  banner  of  frater- 
nity, liberty,  and  equality  in  industry.     For  a  time  all 

*  Potter,  The  Co-operative  Movement. 


CO-OPERATIVE    PRODUCTION  47 

went  well.  And  then  came  disafiection  and  collapse. 
The  Associations  Ouvrieres,  of  1849,  kindled  the  enthu- 
siasm of  J.  M.  Ludlow,  and  he,  with  Thomas  Hughes, 
Maurice,  and  Vansittart  Neale,  beheved  that  in  the 
co-operative  workman's  association  was  "  the  solution 
of  the  great  labour  question."  But  the  Enghsh  "  Society 
for  Promoting  Working  Men's  Associations  "  founded 
by  these  high-minded  men  never  had  the  success  of  the 
French  Associations.  The  appeal  to  the ' '  triple  virtues  ' ' 
of  fraternity,  hberty,  and  equality  fell  coldly  on  the 
ears  of  British  artisans  sixty  years  ago,  and  still  fails 
to  move  our  imromantic  countrymen. 

The  first,  and  last,  report  of  the  Society  for  Pro- 
moting Working  Men's  Associations,  pubHshed  in  1852, 
has  often  been  quoted.  Its  heroic  founders  provided 
all  the  funds  except  £5,  and  the  conclusion  arrived  at 
was  :  "  Where  the  associations  are  successful  the  great 
danger  which  they  and  all  who  are  interested  in  them 
have  to  guard  against  is  exclusiveness.  The  associates 
find  their  own  position  greatly  improved,  and  fear  to 
endanger  it  by  taking  new  members.  They  are  apt, 
therefore,  to  make  too  stringent  rules  as  to  admission, 
and  to  require  payments  from  new  members  propor- 
tionate to  the  capital  which  the  society  has  gained, 
and  such  as  few  of  the  most  skilful  of  working-men 
can  pay  out  of  their  present  wages." 

Plainly,  no  "  solution  of  the  great  labour  question  " 
was  here. 

But  in  France  the  charm  of  the  "  triple  virtues  " 
still  works,  and  the  ideal  of  direct  co-operative  owner- 
ship in  industry  is  ever  sought  by  multitudes ;  while 
in  Great  Britain  the  pursuit  is  rather  for  the  soHd  and 
demonstrated  advantages  of  co-operative  shop-keeping, 
and  the  co-operative  self-governing  productive  society 
has  to  justify  its  existence  as  a  sound  business  concern 
if  it  is  to  live,  and  claim  respect. 


CHAPTER   V 

CO-PAETNERSHtP   AND   PKOFIT-SHAEINO 

Profit-sharing  not  Co-operation  proper — The  case  for  Labour  Co- 
partnership— Leclaire — Gas  Companies  —  Its  Limitations — Trade 
Union  opposition. 

The  term  Labour  Co-partnership  is  not  only  used  in 
England  to-day  to  describe  the  methods  of  self-governing 
productive  societies,  but  is  also  apphed  to  many  Umited 
liability  companies  which  have  adopted  the  practice  of 
profit-sharing  with  employees. 

These  profit-sharing  companies  have  no  place  within 
the  co-operative  movement  proper.  They  have  no 
representatives  on  co-operative  boards,  they  are  not 
affihated  to  the  Co-operative  Union,  and  they  send  no 
delegates  to  the  Co-operative  Congress.  At  the  same 
time  co-partnership  on  profit-sharing  fines  makes  such 
a  wide  appeal,  and  is  regarded  by  so  considerable  a 
number  of  persons  as  a  remedy  for  industrial  imrest — 
and  by  persons  whose  opinions  are  deservedly  respected 
and  who  are  entitled  to  be  heard — that,  taking  into 
account,  too,  its  kinship  with  co-operation,  its  claims 
on  our  attention  are  not  to  be  disregarded. 

A  manifesto  issued  in  1911,  and  signed  by  certain 
captains  of  industry,  trade  union  leaders,  and  pohtical 
economists,  and  by  the  ofiicers  of  the  Labour  Co- 
partnership Association,  states  very  clearly  what,  in 
the  minds  of  its  supporters,  co-partnership,  in  the  form 
of  profit-sharing,  can  achieve  in  this  country. 

"  The  co-partnership  of  Labour  with  Capital  (so  runs 

48 


PROFIT-SHARING  49 

this  manifesto)  is  capable  of  many  modifications  accord- 
ing to  the  needs  of  varj^ng  industries,  and  in  some  one 
of  them  it  is  applicable  to  almost  every  industry  where 
labour  is  employed.  In  its  simplest  form,  taking  the 
case  of  a  man  employed  by  a  great  limited  liabiUty 
company,  it  involves  : 

"1.  That  the  worker  should  receive,  in  addition  to 
the  standard  wages  of  the  trade,  some  share  in  the 
final  profit  of  the  business,  or  the  economy  of  pro- 
duction. 

"  2.  That  the  worker  should  accumulate  his  share  of 
profit,  or  part  thereof,  in  the  capital  of  the  business 
employing  him,  thus  gaining  the  ordinary  rights  and 
responsibiUties  of  a  shareholder. 

'  Where  men  are  so  employed  they  cease  to  be  mere 
wage-servants  and  become  partners  in  industry.  .  .  . 
They  do  not  cease  to  be  interested  in  maintaining  and 
improving  the  standard  rate  of  wages,  and  the  standard 
conditions  of  labour ;  but  they  do  gain  also  another 
interest  and  a  wider  outlook.  They  have  to  look  at 
industry  also  from  the  point  of  view  of  men  who  share 
the  ownership  and  control.  Their  interest  is  no  longer 
wholly  apart :  they  meet  the  other  parties  to  industry 
on  a  common  footing ;  they  learn  to  reahse  a  common 
interest  and  all  the  moral  force  that  arises  from  common 
interest  and  from  working  together.  We  beUeve  that 
in  the  general  application  of  this  principle  is  the  best 
hope  of  building  up  a  better  industrial  system. 

"  Co-partnership  assumes  a  standard  wage  before 
there  can  be  any  talk  of  profit  to  divide. 

"  Co-partnership  is  no  mere  theory.  Worked  out 
originally  over  long  years  of  struggle  and  in  great 
variety  of  details,  by  working-men  in  their  o\^ii  co- 
partnership workshops,  adopted  from  time  to  time  by 
a  few  large-minded  employers  in  various  trades,  twenty- 

D 


50  CO-OPERATION 

one  years  ago  it  was  extended  in  the  midst  of  industrial 
conflict  to  one  of  our  greatest  gasworks,  and  only  three 
years  ago  further  extended  and,  happily,  in  perfect 
peace  to  several  more,  including  the  largest,  so  that 
now  these  co-partnership  companies  control  more  than 
half  the  capital  which  is  invested  in  gas  companies  in 
England. 

"  We  say  it  is  time  to  extend  its  application  still 
further.  The  bulk  of  the  great  industries  of  the  country 
might  come  under  its  equitable  operations.  It  can 
already  show  excellent  results  in  peace,  in  better  con- 
ditions and  in  prosperity,  and  as  time  goes  on  these 
results  are  accumulative.  To-day  it  is  a  marvel  that 
through  co-partnership  the  workers  in  the  three  London 
gas  companies  have  nearly  £600,000  accumulated  in 
the  capital  of  the  works  in  which  they  work." 

To  this  declaration  Lord  Courtney,  the  Right  Hon. 
Thomas  Burt  and  C.  Femvick,  M.P.,  Sir  W.  H.  Lever, 
Sir  B.  C.  Brown  of  Newcastle,  Mr.  T.  C.  Taylor,  M.P., 
Mr.  George  Thomson  of  Huddersfield,  Professor  Alfred 
Marshall,  Mr.  W.  H.  Hadow,  Principal  of  Armstrong 
College,  and  Mr.  Corbet  Woodall,  Governor  of  the  Gas- 
light &  Coke  Co.,  Ltd.,  give  their  signatures.  Stalwart 
co-operators  like  the  late  Mr.  J.  M.  Ludlow,  Mr.  E.  O. 
Greening,  and  Mr.  Aneurin  WiUiams  add  their  names 
in  full  assent. 

But  the  vital  distinction  between  co-partnership 
profit-sharing  and  co-operative  distribution  must  not 
be  forgotten,  because  co-partners  and  co-operators  at 
times  join  hands. 

Profit-sharing  is  the  work  of  large  employers  of  labom* 
wiUing  and  anxious  for  the  weKare  of  their  particular 
employees. 

Co-operation  was  established  and  is  carried  on  by 
working-people  for  their  own  advantage. 

Profit-sharing  must  necessarily  be    confined   to  the 


PROFIT-SHARING  51 

workmen  engaged  in  the  business  "which  has  adopted 
profit-sharing. 

All  are  welcome  to  the  advantages  of  the  co-operative 
store,  because  all  may  purchase  at  it. 

France  has  shown  the  world  two  great  and  highly 
successful  examples  of  co-partnership — in  Leclaire's 
glass-works  in  Paris,  and  Godin's  iron-works  at 
Guise. 

Leclaire  in  1842,  with  three  hundred  men  in  his 
employment,  found  that  by  greater  attention  on  the 
part  of  the  workmen,  £3000  a  year  might  be  saved  on 
working  expenses.  The  inducement  of  a  share  in  the 
profits  accompHshed  that  saving,  and  prosperity  has 
remained  with  the  firm.  Now,  when  5  per  cent,  has 
been  paid  on  capital  and  two  managing  partners  have 
received  quite  moderate  salaries  for  the  work  of  super- 
intendence, the  rest  of  the  profits  are  divided  as  follows  : 
one-fourth  to  the  managing  partners,  one-fourth  to  the 
Mutual  Aid  Society  (for  the  benefit  of  the  employees), 
and  one -half  to  the  workmen  employed. 

Leclaire's  may  be  taken  as  a  typical  specimen  of 
profit-sharing,  and  it  has  endiu*ed. 

In  England  the  South  MetropoHtan  Gas  Company 
is  constantly  being  quoted  in  favoiu:  of  profit-sharing ; 
and  as  the  system  here  has  lasted  over  twenty  years, 
and  workmen  hold  shares  in  the  company  to  the  extent 
of  £600,000 — allotted  when  their  savings  on  the  profits 
are  sufficient  to  piu-chase  shares — as  at  a  distributive 
store  a  customer  will  let  the  dividends  accumulate  till 
they  amount  to  £1  (or  more),  and  with  that  sum  become 
a  shareholder — there  is  justification  for  reference  to  the 
Gas  Company.  Moreover,  many  other  gas  companies 
have  followed  the  example  of  the  South  MetropoHtan, 
and  profit-sharing  is  plainly  suitable  to  such  imder- 
takings. 

In  fact  where  the  output  of   work  is  quite  regular, 


52  CO-OPERATION 

and  demand  and  supply  are  so  constant  that  the  com- 
petent workman  is  in  no  anxiety  lest  emplojinent  come 
to  an  end,  a  system  of  profit-sharing  can  be  adopted 
without  any  difficulty.  Seciuity  and  confidence  are 
essential  for  profit-sharing,  and  modem  conditions  of 
industry  do  not  allow  these  things  in  a  great  number 
of  cases.  The  press  of  competition  threatens  the  exist- 
ence of  many  an  old-established  firm.  A  change  of 
management,  a  change  of  fashion,  new  inventions  in 
labour-saving  machinery,  a  rash  speculation  or  over- 
caution — all  or  any  one  of  these  items  may  cause  loss 
of  trade,  and  drive  a  firm  into  bankruptcy. 

Given  a  monopoly  such  as  a  gas  company  commonly 
enjoys  and  profit-sharing  is  an  easy  matter.  Soap, 
cocoa,  and  jam  production,  on  a  large  scale,  again,  are 
eminently  suitable  for  profit-sharing,  for  here  the  demand 
is  constant. 

But  in  any  case  it  rarely  happens  that  the  employees 
hold  enough  shares  to  have  any  voice  in  the  manage- 
ment of  a  profit-sharing  business.  And  there  is  no 
desire,  as  a  general  rule,  that  employees  should  have 
any  voice  in  the  management.  Profit-sharing  attaches 
employees  to  a  business,  and  is  a  deterrent  from  strikes. 
When  it  has  been  instituted  by  employers  of  wide  out- 
look it  will  develop  responsibility  in  the  workman  and 
will  not  necessarily  narrow  his  sympathies  to  his  fellows 
or  exclude  him  from  trade  imion  association.  On  the 
other  hand,  profit-sharing  established  with  the  sole  view 
of  advantage  to  the  firm  commonly  succeeds  in  its 
purpose  by  separating  the  men  who  enjoy  the  bonus 
on  wages  from  all  trade  union  activity. 

Hence  the  disUke  so  often  expressed  by  trade  union 
leaders  for  profit-sharing  schemes.  The  individuals 
sharing  the  profits  may  gain,  but  there  is  no  advance 
in  the  general  Une.  The  bonus  on  wages  is  regarded 
with  suspicion  as  a  bribe  or  a  gratuity,  given  to  keep 


PROFIT-SHARING  53 

workmen  from  joining  in  a  common  demand  for  better 
wages  or  shorter  horn's. 

Profit-sharing,  it  is  argued,  is  not  possible  in  all 
indastries.  The  smaller  firms  cannot  guarantee  any 
bonus  on  wages,  many  larger  firms  will  not  do  so.  The 
efforts  to  bring  every  workman  into  a  trade  union,  and 
then  by  a  federation  of  trade  unions  to  compel  the 
payment  of  a  bigger  wage,  is  thwarted  by  the  profit- 
sharing  company. 

Co-partnership  advocates  maintain,  on  their  side,  that 
profit-sharing  should  be  extended,  and  that  the  workman 
stands  to  gain  by  its  extension,  and  to  gain  without  the 
loss  and  hardships  of  the  strike. 

The  real  difficulty  Ues  in  the  small  number  of  indus- 
tries where  profit-sharing  is  the  rule. 

"  The  deficiencies  of  this  scheme  do  not  lie  in  its 
constitution  but  in  the  extent  of  its  actual  application. 
Expressed  in  the  terms  of  the  number  of  workers,  and 
of  the  proportion  of  the  community,  and  capital  and 
trade  involved,  the  extent  of  its  application  is  small 
compared  to  the  whole  of  the  workers,  the  community, 
and  the  enterprises  of  capital  throughout  the  country. 
Its  significance  lies,  however,  in  the  possibilities  of  its 
application,  in  more  or  less  modified  forms,  to  indus- 
tries generally.  .  .  . 

'■  Difficult  as  the  introduction  of  the  full  principle  of 
Lnbour  Co-partnership  may  be  under  the  regime  of 
capitalism,  it  is  desirable,  from  the  standpoint  of  indus- 
trial peace  and  public  convenience,  not  to  mention  the 
proved  increased  efficiency  of  industry  where  it  has 
been  already  adopted,  that  an  extensive  application  of 
the  principle  should  be  made  practicable.  The  adoption 
of  the  scheme  by  such  firms  as  Messrs.  Taylor  of  Batley, 
Thomson  of  Huddersfield,  and  the  application  of  the 
principle  is  more  than  half  the  capital  employed  by  the 
gas  companies  of  the  country,  shows  that  where  there 


54  CO-OPERATION 

is  the  necessary  mutual  temper  between  employers 
and  employed,  some  approach  to  heartier  co-operation, 
where  so  much  more  co-operation  is  desirable  between 
Capital  and  Labour,  is  possible  under  co-partnership. 
Some  of  these  cases  prove  that,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
South  MetropoUtan  Gas  Company,  the  workers'  interest 
in  the  ownership  of  capital  and  share  of  business  control 
may  become  a  growing  factor  in  helping  to  shape  the 
conditions  of  labour  that  escape  the  large  scale  influence 
of  Trade  Unionism,  and  the  larger  scale  action  of  muni- 
cipal and  national  enterprise.  Of  course,  there  are 
diJBiculties  in  such  departures  from  capitaUstic  and 
autocratic  industry,  but  the  question  all  practical  people 
desire  answering  on  this  point  is  :  '  Are  these  diffi- 
culties too  high  a  price  to  pay  for  stopping  the  probable 
paralysing  difficulties  of  the  present  and  the  future 
normal  relations  of  Labour  and  Capital  ?  '  It  is  prob- 
ably more  palatable  for  modem  capitaUsm  to  concen- 
trate its  energies  in  turning  all  the  surplus  earnings  of 
industry  into  its  own  pocket,  and  to  retain  an  auto- 
cratic grip  on  the  government  and  machinery  of  industry, 
but  if  Labour,  as  seems  likely,  refuses  to  work  smoothly 
and  efficiently  with  such  an  arrangement,  capitalists 
wUl  either  have  to  accede  to  modified  relations  of  them- 
selves to  the  workers,  or  the  earnings  of  both  Labour 
and  Capital  will  be  curtailed  by  gigantic  deadlocks  of 
industry."  ^ 

There  we  have  the  case  stated  from  the  co-partner- 
ship standpoint,  without  any  blinking  at  the  obstacles, 
and  with  the  alternative  of  strikes  and  industrial  war 
fairly  presented. 

One  or  two  other  facts  call  for  consideration. 
Many  a  hmited  habihty  company  in  existence  pays 
no    dividend,    and     many    a    private    firm    has     its 

^  "  Co-partnei-ship  and  Present-day  Labour  Troubles,"  The  Ckh 
operators'  Year-Book,  19l2. 


PROFIT-SHARING  55 

years  of  bad  trade,  when  losses  and  not  profits  are  the 
rule. 

What  can  the  Umited  Uability  company  which  has 
not  yet  begun  to  pay  dividends  do  in  the  matter  of 
profit-sharing  ?  And  in  the  case  of  a  bad  year  of  trade 
the  private  firm  is  by  no  means  anxious  to  proclaim  to 
the  world  that  there  are  no  profits  to  be  shared.  If 
the  workman  is  to  share  in  the  profits,  will  he  also  be 
willing  to  share  in  the  losses  by  a  reduction  of  wages  ? 
it  is  asked. 

The  obliteration  of  the  unsuccessful  trader  and  the 
amalgamation  of  smaller  firms  into  a  huge  business 
doubtless  continue,  and  when  these  processes  have  been 
carried  to  the  point  of  the  total  extinction  of  the  small 
industry,  co-partnership  and  profit-sharing  may  be 
offered  as  the  only  alternative  to  State  Socialism. 

In  the  meantime  profit-sharing  acts  as  a  buffer  to  the 
opposing  forces  of  capital  and  labour,  and  in  a  certain 
number  of  cases  is  a  practical  guarantee  against  strikes. 
But  in  any  industry  where  the  workmen  are  powerfully 
organised  in  a  trade  union  federation — as  the  miners 
are,  for  instance — it  is  very  doubtful  whether  profit- 
sharing  by  a  particular  firm  in  that  industry  would 
hinder  the  men  employed  from  taking  part  in  a  national 
strike. 

At  the  best  it  would  seem  that  to-day  the  possi- 
bilities of  profit-sharing  are  very  strictly  hmited.  And 
while  the  advantages  to  the  workman  from  this  scheme 
may  be  obvious  in  the  case  of  gas  companies  and  one  or 
two  special  industries,  its  general  application  is  rendered 
impossible  by  the  conditions  of  commercial  competition 
and  by  the  growth  of  trade  union  federations. 

Whether  the  spirit  of  association  bids  workmen  join 
with  their  employers  in  co-partnership  and  stand  aloof 
from  united  action  \vith  other  workmen  in  a  campaign 
that  can  offer  no  personal  advantage,  and  from  a  quarrel 


56  CO-OPERATION 

that  may  be  none  of  their  seeking  ;  or  whether  it  bids 
them  join  with,  their  fellow-workmen  in  seeking  an 
advance  all  along  the  line,  irrespective  of  personal  gain 
or  comfort,  is  a  question  that  may  fairly  be  debated. 

To  some  a  imited  working-class  is  the  instrument  for 
achieving  social  progress.  To  others  a  union  of  capita- 
lists and  labourers  promises  social  peace  in  addition  to 
social  progress. 

-  The  former,  naturally,  have  a  deep  distrust  of  all 
schemes  that  may  weaken  the  allegiance  of  workmen 
to  the  demands  of  their  whole  class. 

The  latter  honestly  rejoice  when  the  workman  becomes 
a  shareholder  in  the  ventures  of  the  capitahst. 

Profit-sharing  then,  \\athin  its  hmits,  while  it  makes 
for  good  feeling  between  labourer  and  capitalist,  is  anta- 
gonistic to  imited  working-class  action.  It  is  a  proposal 
from  the  employer  and  not  from  the  employed,  and 
while  improving  the  material  position  of  workmen,  it 
has  done  little  as  yet  to  increase  his  industrial  re- 
sponsibility. 

Finally,  it  is  only  concerned  with  employed  workmen 
in  particular  industries.  It  offers  no  help  to  the  un- 
employed, nor  any  aid  to  those  outside  these  industries. 

But,  in  spite  of  all  this,  let  us  again  acknowledge 
that  with  the  growth  of  trusts  and  amalgamations  of 
capital,  co-partnership  and  profit-sharing  are  offered  as 
the  alternative  to  Socialism,  and  as  a  guarantee  against 
strikes  and  labour  wars  for  the  peaceful  social  pa.ssage 
of  mankind  to  a  happier  commonwealth. 

Note. — The  following  statement  in  the  Labour  Gazette 
of  the  Board  of  Trade  for  July  1912  shows  how  slight, 
at  present,  is  the  connection  between  responsibility  in 
management  and  profit-sharing : 

"As  a  rule,  to  which  there  are,  however,  important 
exceptions,  the  shares  oAvned  by  the  employees  give 


PROFIT-SHARING  57 

them  the  ordinary  voting  powers,  and  as  time  goes  on 
and  their  holdings  increase,  their  voting  strength  should 
in  due  course  be  augmented.  At  present,  the  propor- 
tion of  the  total  number  of  votes  that  might  be  given 
at  a  general  meeting  of  shareholders,  which  belongs  to 
the  employees,  hardly  ever  reaches  5  per  cent.,  and  is 
in  nearly  all  cases  a  quite  insignificant  percentage.  In 
only  six  out  of  the  100  cases  here  dealt  with  are  the 
employees  represented  on  the  Board  of  Directors. 
There  exist,  however,  under  a  very  large  number  of 
profit-sharing  schemes,  joint  committees  composed  of 
employers  and  employed,  whose  functions,  although  of 
a  consultative  nature  only,  cannot  be  considered  as 
other  than  important." 


CHAPTER   VI 

CO-OPERATION   IN   AGRICTTLTUKE 

The  DiflBculties  in  the  way— The  I.  A.O.S.— The  A.O.S.— Agricultural 
Co-operation  by  the  Distributive  Societies — Inter-trading — Den- 
mark— The  French  Agricultural  Syndicates — France  and  England. 

Co-operation  in  agriculture  is  a  modest  affair  in  Great 
Britain  compared  \\ith  the  work  of  the  great  distribu- 
tive societies. 

It  is  a  movement  of  later  times,  and  its  progress  has 
been  slow.  The  difficulties  must  be  justly  appreciated. 
Distributive  co-operation  commenced  and  has  flourished 
where  people  are  massed  together  in  large  numbers,  and 
work  side  by  side  in  mills  and  factories.  The  close 
daily  intercourse  of  factory  life  makes  for  the  ready 
exchange  of  ideas  and  opinions  and  fosters  mutual  con- 
fidence, friendship,  and  fellowship.  Hence  the  factory 
districts  are  ever,  in  England,  the  seed-beds  of  aU 
democratic  movements. 

But  agriculturists — whether  landowners,  farmers,  or 
labourers — ^necessarily  know  nothing  of  the  constant, 
hourly  intimacy  of  the  factory  workers.  Farmers  may 
meet  once  a  week  on  market-day,  and  over  their  "  ordi- 
nary "  discuss  prices  and  crops.  Labourers  may  come 
together  at  the  end  of  the  day — tired  and  dispirited — 
to  pass  an  hour  at  the  village  public.  But  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  agricultural  year  the  day's  work  is 
done  alone,  and  the  soUtude  and  isolation  are  not  con- 
ducive to  the  play  of  that  social  instinct  which  is  at 
the  very  root  of  industrial  co-operation. 


CO-OPERATION    IN   AGRICULTURE     59 

And  then  the  industrial  revolution  which  has  made 
a  wealthy  governing  class  of  factory  owners  of  men 
whose  grandfathers,  often  enough,  were  simple  work- 
men, has  had  no  counterpart  in  rural  England.  No 
large  landowners  can  be  found  whose  grandfathers  were 
agricultural  labourers  or  small  farmers.  The  farmer 
has  remained  a  farmer  or  has  dropped  from  farming  to 
become  a  labourer.  The  labourer  remains  a  labourer 
still,  ending  his  days  in  but  too  many  cases  in  the 
workhouse ;  while  his  sons  have  sought  a  hving  far 
from  their  native  village.  The  landowner  himself  has 
frequently  come  to  poverty,  his  estate  to  be  purchased 
and  his  place  filled  by  some  man  grown  rich  on  the 
profits  of  trade. 

The  field  of  agriculture  has  been  obviously  a  poor 
soil  for  co-operative  enterprise.  And  yet  sHght  as  the 
movement  for  agricultural  co-operation  appears,  there 
is  a  movement,  a  steady,  gro^ving  movement.  The 
suspicion  of  new  ideas,  the  fear  and  disHke  of  change, 
the  difl&culty  of  beheving  that  things  can  mend — all 
heavy  obstacles  to  the  rural  co-operator — slowly  yield 
in  many  places  to  the  co-operative  teaching.  It  has 
become  clear  to  numbers  of  country-folk  that  co-opera- 
tion is  not  only  desirable  but  absolutely  necessary  if 
there  is  to  be  any  sort  of  life  for  agricultural  workers. 

Progress  and  prosperity  are  noted  in  connection  with 
agricultural  co-operation  in  Denmark,  in  France,  and  in 
Ireland.  Plainly  something  can  be  done,  and  must  be 
done  on  similar  lines  in  Great  Britain.  Hence  the  rise 
in  England  of  the  Agricultural  Organisation  Society, 
Limited. 

The  Irish  Agricultural  Organisation  Society,  Limited, 
dates  from  1889 ;  the  EngUsh  A.O.S.  from  1901. 

Let  us  consider  the  work  of  the  older  society  first. 

Sir  Horace  Plunkett  more  than  any  other  man  is 
responsible  for  the  establishment  and  the  success  of  the 


60  CO-OPERATION 

Irish  society.  He  it  was  who  saw  that  the  rural  side 
of  civilisation  lagged  behind,  that  "  wealth  and  power 
and  population  "  were  drawn  to  the  towns,  and  that 
if  the  countryside  was  to  flourish  again  and  the  cry  of 
"  Back  to  the  Land  "  made  a  reahty  instead  of  a  catch- 
word, three  things  were  required  for  the  farmer — 
"  better  farming,  better  business,  better  Uving."  Of 
these  three,  in  Sir  Horace  Plunkett's  own  words,  better 
living,  undoubtedly  the  most  important,  would  be 
largely  the  result  and  fruition  of  the  other  things.  So 
while  the  Irish  Agricultural  Department,  of  which  Sir 
Horace  Plunkett  was  for  many  years  Vice-President, 
was  to  teach  and  assist  the  farmer  to  better  farming, 
the  I.A.O.S.  was  to  organise  farmers  for  better  business. 
"  The  voluntary  society,  the  I.A.O.S.,  came  first,  raised 
money  by  appeals  to  patriotic  Irishmen,  who  responded 
with  an  amazing  generosity,  and  got  to  work  organising 
the  farmers."  It  was  neither  sectarian  nor  political; 
Roman  CathoUcs  and  Protestants,  Nationalists  and 
Unionists  have  belonged  to  the  lA.O.S.  from  the  first. 
Roman  CathoHc  priests  and  Protestant  clergymen,  land- 
lords and  tenant-farmers  all  serve  on  its  committee, 
taking  it  for  granted  that  "  the  welfare  of  Ireland 
depends  mainly  upon  the  welfare  of  the  Irish  farmer," 
and  convinced  after  a  careful  study  of  Ireland's  de- 
pressed condition,  that  ""  only  by  imited  effort  can  a 
better  state  of  things  be  brought  about,"  and  only  by 
agricultural  co-operation  the  farmer's  threatened  exist- 
ence improved. 

After  the  formation  of  the  I.A.O.S.  the  Government 
Department  of  Agriculture  for  Ireland  was  created,  and 
this  Department,  instead  of  undertaking  at  once  the 
technical  instruction  of  farmers,  found  the  I.A.O.S. 
already  at  work  and  very  sensibly  subsidised  it  and 
asked  it  to  continue  this  technical  instruction.  Since 
Sir  Horace  Plunkett's  retirement  the  subsidy  has  been 


CO-OPERATION    IN    AGRICULTURE     61 

gradually  withdrawn,  and  the  relations  of  the  Depart- 
ment to  the  I.A.O.S.  have  undergone  a  change.  While 
the  English  A.O.S.  received  a  grant  from  the  Board  of 
Agriculture  of  £1441  m  1910  and  the  Scottish  A.O.S. 
a  substantial  sum,  all  that  the  Irish  A.O.S.  received  in 
1910  was  £350  from  the  Congested  Districts  Board. 
But  in  spite  of  Government  coldness  and  positive  dis- 
favour, the  I.A.O.S.  goes  steadily  ahead.  The  butter 
sales — and  butter  is  naturally  the  chief  product  of  the 
Irish  farm — of  the  various  agricultural  societies  affiliated 
to  the  I.A.O.S.  have  mounted  up  in  twenty  years  from 
£4363  to  £1,897,630,  and  the  total  turnover  to  £2,589,559. 
Starting  ^vith  one  society  in  1889,  there  are  now  880 
agricultural  societies  in  Ireland.  Three  hundred  and 
eighty  of  these  are  creameries  for  the  sale  of  butter ; 
165  are  agricultural  and  are  concerned  mainly  with  the 
purchase  and  sale  of  implements,  artificial  manures,  and 
seeds — aided  in  this  by  the  Irish  Agricultural  Wholesale 
Society  ;  237  are  credit  societies,  i.e.  rural  banks  ;  and 
the  rest  are  flax  societies,  poultry-keepers'  societies, 
and  miscellaneous  industries.  One  hundred  thousand 
farmers  in  Ireland  were  members  of  co-operative 
societies  in  1910. 

Both  the  Irish  Co-operative  Agency  Society,  Limited, 
for  the  sale  of  agricultural  co-operative  productions  to 
retailers,  and  the  Irish  Agricultural  Wholesale  Society 
for  the  supply  of  agricultural  requirements  to  agricul- 
tural co-operative  societies,  though  of  recent  formation, 
show  a  steady  increase  of  business.  They  are  federa- 
tions, created  and  controlled  by  the  Irish  agricultural 
co-operative  societies,  and  while  the  I.A.O.S.  organises, 
encourages,  and  instructs,  it  leaves  all  trading  operations 
to  these  federations. 

The  work  of  the  I.A.O.S.  has  yet  to  be  appreciated 
at  its  full  worth.  Co-operative  creameries,  agricul- 
tural societies,  agricultural  banks,  poultry  societies,  and 


62  CO-OPERATION 

federations  have  all  spnmg  from  the  I.A.O.S.,  and  the 
change  wrought  m  rural  Ireland  by  co-operation  is 
willingly  acknowledged  by  thousands  of  Irish  farmers. 
If  the  Irish  agricultural  labourer  has  not  profited  so 
considerably  by  co-operation,  it  is  for  the  future  to  see 
to  this  weak  spot  in  rural  progress. 

In  England  a  small  local  society  of  agricultural  co- 
operators  has  been  in  existence  at  Assington,  Suffolk, 
since  1829,  and  another  similar  society  at  Coin  St. 
Aldwjms  in  Gloucester  has  long  enjoyed  a  certain 
measure  of  success.  But  only  since  the  estabUshment 
of  the  English  Agricultural  Organisation  Society  in  1901 
has  there  been  any  considerable  movement  towards 
combination  amongst  farmers  and  small-holders.  As 
with  the  I.A.O,S.,the  EngUsh  A.O.S.  holds  strictly  aloof 
from  party  politics,  does  no  trade  itself,  and  its  purpose 
is  to  advocate  co-operation  amongst  agriculturists,  to 
advise  and  assist  in  the  formation  and  organisation  of 
registered  co-operative  agricultural  societies  through- 
out England  and  Wales.  (Scotland  now  has  its  own 
A.O.S.)  Twenty-five  societies  with  a  membership  of 
517  and  a  turnover  of  £9467  were  in  existence  at  the 
end  of  the  first  year  of  the  A.O.S.  At  the  close  of  1910, 
396  societies  were  afl&Uated  to  the  A.O.S.,  and  the  total 
membership  stood  at  24,000,  and  estimated  turnover 
at  £1,100,000.  The  small-holdings  and  allotment 
societies  numbered  161,  and  the  agricultural  trading 
societies  for  the  supply  of  requirements  and  the  sale 
of  produce,  145.  The  dairy  farmers  are  slow  to  co- 
operate, and  have  only  19  societies  in  England  and 
Wales. 

The  A.O.S.  is  careful  to  distinguish  between  the 
methods  of  a  co-operative  society  and  a  joint-stock 
company.  The  profits  of  the  latter  belong  to  the  share- 
holder, who  may  or  may  not  be  a  purchaser,  but  the 
profits  of  a  genuine  agricultural  society  should  belong 


CO-OPERATION    IN    AGRICULTURE     63 

exclusively  to  the  purchaser  according  to  the  extent  of 
his  purchases.  TTie  joint-stock  company  may  have 
been  started  by  farmers  to  secure  better  prices  for  the 
sale  of  produce,  and  the  advantage  of  purchasing  whole- 
sale for  their  own  agricultural  needs.  But  in  course  of 
time  as  the  original  members  die  or  dispose  of  their 
shares,  it  becomes  merely  an  association  of  private 
merchants  trading  for  profit  out  of  all  who  deal  with  it, 
and  is  no  more  a  co-operative  concern  than  are  large 
joint-stock  supply-stores  in  London. 

The  A.O.S.  has  not  been  content  to  start  farmers' 
co-operative  societies ;  it  has  laboured,  and  not  vainly, 
to  promote  sensible  relations  between  the  Co-operative 
Wholesale  Society,  the  larger  distributive  societies, 
and  the  agricultural  societies.  The  fullest  inter-trading 
amongst  co-operators  is  desirable.  While  the  A.O.S. 
societies  can  and  do  purchase  from  the  Co-operative 
Wholesale  Society  to  a  very  large  extent,  the  distribu- 
tive societies  have  only  in  quite  recent  times  thought 
it  worth  while  to  purchase  the  cattle,  sheep,  and  pigs 
of  the  A.O.S.  societies.  On  both  sides  there  is  now  a 
stronger  feeling  than  ever  in  favour  of  inter-trading. 

Invaluable  as  the  A.O.S.  has  been  in  the  work  of 
rural  co-operation,  the  story  of  its  activities  by  no  means 
completes  the  tale  of  co-operative  activity  in  agriculture. 
Many  distributive  societies  in  the  IVIidlands,  and  in 
Northumberland,  Durham,  Lancashire,  Yorkshire,  Kent, 
and  Devon,  now  do  their  own  farming  on  their  own 
land.  The  C.W.S.  has  its  o^^^l  farm  of  327  acres  in 
Lancashire.  Scottish  distributive  societies  in  Stirling, 
Fife,  Haddington,  and  Peebles  own  (or  rent)  their  own 
farms. 

Broadly,  the  distinction  between  the  A.O.S.  Co-opera- 
tive Society  and  the  farming  of  the  distributive  society, 
is  the  distinction  between  productive  and  distributive 
co-operation.    The  A.O.S.  Co-operative  Society  consists 


64  CO-OPERATION 

of  farmers  and  small-holders  who  work  directly  on  the 
land  and  by  combination  are  able  to  accomplish  better 
business  for  themselves.  Membership  in  such  a  society 
is  not  for  the  general  pubhc.  The  Co-operative  Whole- 
sale and  the  distributive  societies  are  simply  employing 
people  on  the  land  for  agricultural  produce  as  they 
would  employ  others  in  boot  factories,  cloth  mills,  or 
printing  offices.  Their  employees  at  work  on  the  land 
by  membership  in  the  society  will  enjoy  the  profits  of 
the  society  according  to  the  amount  of  goods  purchased, 
but  they  will  have  no  advantage  over  any  member  of 
the  public  who  has  joined  the  society  and  is  a  pur- 
chaser. 

The  total  number  of  registered  agricultural  co-opera- 
tive societies  in  Great  Britain  in  1911  was  619,  and  the 
total  estimated  turnover  was  £1,617,063.  Co-operative 
trading  societies  for  the  supply  of  agricultural  require- 
ments numbered  238 ;  small-holdings  and  allotments 
societies,  194 ;  eggs  and  poultry  societies,  77  ;  dairies,  29 ; 
co-operative  agricultural  insurance  societies,  23 ;  credit 
banks  (including  the  Central  Agricultural  Bank),  45 ;  and 
miscellaneous  societies,  13.  The  agricultural  associa- 
tions registered  as  hmited  liability  companies  are  not 
included  in  these  figures. 

Of  course  there  are  inevitable  failures  in  agricultural 
co-operation,  but  only  eight  societies  Avere  dissolved  last 
year  (1911)  against  forty-three  small-holdings  and  allot- 
ment societies  newly  registered  ;  and  of  these  unsuccess- 
ful eight,  three  gave  up  the  unequal  contest  because 
they  could  get  no  land. 

Denmark  has  been  conspicuous  for  thirty  years  for  its 
co-operative  dairies.  It  has  now  over  a  thousand  agri- 
cultural co-operative  societies,  and  every  village  has  its 
co-operative  dairy.  Four-fifths  of  the  milk  supply  comes 
from  these  dairies.  But  then  Denmark  is  largely  a 
nation  of  small  freeholders,  and  from  the  first  its  Govern- 


CO-OPERATION   IN   AGRICULTURE     65 

ment  has  aided  agricultural  co-operation.  The  Agri- 
cultural SjTidicates  of  France — syndicats  agricoles — have 
grown  up  in  the  last  sixty  years. 

It  was  in  1844  that  the  French  farmers  found  their 
prosperity  threatened  by  an  extensive  foreign  competi- 
tion, and  turned  to  co-operation  for  the  preservation 
of  life.  Legislation  legalised  the  agricultural  syndicates 
in  that  year — freedom  of  association  had  been  hitherto 
forbidden — and  membership  in  the  syndicate  was  open 
to  landowner,  farmer,  bailiff,  agent,  peasant,  and  the 
manufacturer  of  chemical  manures  and  agricultural 
implements.  Complete  neutraUty  in  politics  was  the 
rule,  and  the  chief  aim  of  the  association  at  the  start 
was  to  assist  the  cultivator  in  the  purchase  of  chemical 
manures.  But  the  extension  of  the  movement  to  wider 
and  greater  aims  was  a  quick  development,  and  the 
whole  rural  population  has  gained  as  the  syndicates 
have  grown  into  Federations  and  Provincial  Unions. 
The  membership  fee  was  small,  ranging  from  2^  to 
3  francs  a  year,  and  the  returns  were  obvious.  Joining 
the  syndicate  the  agriculturist  had  the  advantage  of 
better  prices,  technical  assistance,  cattle  insurance,  and 
credit.  The  syndicates  are  the  organisation  of  an 
industry.  They  have  combined  the  agricultural  em- 
ployer and  employed,  the  peasant  and  landowner  in  a 
single  purpose — the  enrichment  of  the  agricultural 
worker. 

In  a  country  where  peasant  proprietorship  is  common 
and  the  feudal  attitude  of  the  landowner  to  his  tenant 
has  long  disappeared,  success  may  be  guaranteed  for 
an  agricultural  syndicate.  But  in  Great  Britain  where 
vast  estates  are  in  the  hands  of  non-agriculturists  and 
every  difficulty  is  placed  in  the  way  of  a  poor  man 
obtaining  land,  the  hmits  of  co-operative  action  in 
agriculture  are  marked.  And  while  a  better  spirit 
amongst  British  landowners,  and  a  larger  intelligence 


66  CO-OPERATION 

and  more  generous  mind  amongst  farmers  and  labonrere, 
may  encourage  the  agricultural  co-operative  movement 
in  this  land,  to  the  general  gain  of  the  countryside,  it 
seems  doubtful  whether  agricultural  life  can  again  put 
on  the  glories  that  are  its  due  unless  legislative  changes, 
vitally  affecting  land  tenure,  first  take  place. 


CHAPTER   Vn 

THE   CONTmENTAL  CO-OPERATOR 

Various  expressions  of  the  Co-operative  spirit — The  Raifeisen 
and  Schulze-Delitzch  Banks  in  Germany — "  Maisons  da  Peuple " 
in  Belgium — Societa  di  Lavoro  in  Italy — The  International  Co- 
operative Alliance. 

In  Great  Britain  the  distributive  store  is  the  common 
and  obvious  sign  of  co-operation,  and  British  co-operators 
have,  in  the  main,  shown  conspicuously  an  abiUty  for 
retail  commerce  and  a  skill  in  supplying  the  neces- 
sary goods  for  the  store's  customers  that  co-operators 
throughout  the  world  can  but  look  upon  with  wonder. 

Plainly  the  British  co-operator  has  a  full  share  of 
that  national  readiness  for  shop-keeping  which,  de- 
servedly or  otherwise,  has  been  set  down  to  our  credit, 
and  has  been  noted  as  a  chief  characteristic  of  our 
race.^ 

Co-operators  in  other  nations  have,  with  varying  suc- 
cess, set  up  distributive  societies,  and  in  nearly  every 
country  in  Europe  the  co-operative  store  is  to  be  found. 
But  as  in  Great  Britain  distribution,  including  manu- 
facture for  distribution,  is  at  once  the  largest,  the  most 
important,  and  the  most  remarkable  expression  of  the 
spirit  of  association,  so  in  other  lands  are  other  expres- 
sions of  this  self-same  spirit. 

In  Ireland,  in  Denmark,  and  in  France  the  small 
landed  proprietors  have  co-operated  in  agricultural  work 

^  The  word  "  British  "  is  used  "  without  prejudice  "  in  this  con- 
nection. Scottish  readers  can  substitute  "  English  "  if  they  prefer 
to  do  so. 

67 


68  CO-OPERATION 

to  an  extent  that  far  exceeds  the  modest  efforts  of 
BritiBh  agricultural  co-operators.  France,  too,  can  show 
great  experiments  in  industrial  profit-sharing  carried 
out  over  long  periods  of  time. 

In  Grermany  the  Co-operative  Credit  Banks,  whether 
conducted  on  the  Raifeisen  or  the  Schulze-Delitzch 
principles,  have  earned  a  world-wide  reputation. 

In  Belgium  the  "  Maisons  du  Peuple  "  are,  perhaps, 
the  most  striking  example  in  all  Western  Europe  of  what 
can  be  accompUshed  by  the  voluntary  association  of 
working  people  in  a  social  enterprise,  rather  educational 
and  recreative  than  commercial.  If  co-operative  bank- 
ing in  Great  Britain  to-day  is  as  nothing  by  the  side  of 
the  German  banks,  the  reading-rooms  that  are  some- 
times found  in  the  buildings  of  our  co-operative  societies 
cannot  even  be  compared  with  the  Maisons  du  Peuple  of 
the  Belgian  towns  and  cities. 

The  principles  which  govern  the  two  varieties  of 
Credit  Bank  in  Germany  are  by  no  means  similar.  For 
while  the  Raifeisen  Bank  is  rather  an  association  of 
neighbours  for  mutual  aid,  the  Schulze-Delitzch  Bank 
is  more  properly  described  as  a  co-o];)erative  money- 
lending  society. 

As  far  back  as  1849,  Friedrich  Wilhelm  Raifeisen 
started  his  loan  banks  in  Rhenish  Prussia.  Raifeisen 
was  a  burgomaster,  and  he  was  roused  to  action  by 
the  general  distress  of  his  rural  neighbours.  He  saw 
them  in  the  clutches  of  the  money-lender,  hopelessly 
embarrassed  by  debt,  and  ever  sinking  lower  and  lower 
in  the  morass  of  insolvency.  Encumbered  by  a  weight 
of  debt,  multipUed  beyond  recognition  by  the  enormous 
accumulations  of  interest,  what  chance  of  recovery  was 
there  for  the  small  agriculturist  once  in  the  grip  of  the 
money-lender  ?  To  Raifeisen  mutual  aid  was  the  alter- 
native to  this  deadly  borrowing  from  professional 
money-lenders. 


THE  CONTINENTAL  CO-OPERATOR  69 

The  agriculturists  must  combine,  and  persons  of  good- 
will must  come  to  their  assistance.  By  the  aid  of  a 
few  socially- minded  men  and  women  of  substance  ready 
to  give  the  bank  a  start,  by  making  the  shares  in  the 
bank  as  low  as  possible,  and  by  keeping  down  the 
working  expenses  to  a  minimum  by  means  of  voluntary 
labour,  the  loan  banks  were  estabUshed  and  have  pros- 
pered. As  a  general  rule  the  HabiUty  of  every  member 
is  hmited  only  by  the  liabihty  of  the  whole  society, 
and  as  this  joint  responsibiUty  of  every  shareholder  is 
a  security  that  no  individual  member  could  oflFer,  the 
individual  is  no  longer  at  the  mercy  of  the  private 
money-lender  when  in  need  of  financial  help.  He 
borrows  from  the  society  on  the  security  of  his  feUow- 
members,  but  only  when  these  fellow-members  are  satis- 
fied that  a  loan  is  necessary.  In  every  case  the  object 
of  the  loan  must  be  specified,  for  the  Raifeisen  Bank 
makes  no  general  loans.  The  rate  of  interest  is  5  per 
cent. ;  and  at  this  rate  many  a  small  farmer  can  get 
the  help  that  pulls  him  through  a  bad  season  without 
being  involved  in  a  debt  that  chokes  its  victims. 

For  all  the  later  success  of  these  co-operative  credit 
banks  they  won  no  great  measure  of  approval  in  their 
early  years.  It  was  not  tiU  1880  that  the  Raifeisen 
Bank  became  a  really  popular  institution  in  Germany, 
and  these  last  thirty  years  have  seen  that  popularity 
maintained. 

It  is  on  the  model  of  the  Raifeisen  Bank  that  EngUsh 
agricultural  co-operative  banks  have  been  formed,  and 
this  example  of  German  co-operation  has  a  close  and 
interesting  comiection  with  the  foundation  of  the  Irish 
Agricultural  Organisation  Society. 

"About  the  year  1880  the  co-operative  movement 
was  very  active  in  Denmark  and  Germany,  and  other 
continental  countries.  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  was  en- 
gaged studying  it  when  Father  Finlay,  a  Jesuit  priest. 


70  CO-OPERATION 

arrived  in  Dublin  on  completion  of  his  studies  in  the 
German  universities.  Invited  to  lecture,  he  selected 
for  his  subject  co-operative  banking  on  the  Raifeisen 
system,  as  worked  in  Germany.  In  the  audience  was 
Sir  Horace.  Finding  his  views  on  co-operation  in  com- 
plete harmony  with  Father  Finlay,  he  sought  an  intro- 
duction, and  from  it  grew  up  a  friendship,  which 
culminated  in  the  establishment  of  the  I.A.O.S.,  and 
in  the  development  of  agricultural  co-operation  in  Ire- 
land." ' 

The  Raifeisen  Banks  are  now  federated  throughout 
Germany  into  a  union,  and  a  general  agency  for  their 
transactions  has  been  formed. 

The  first  of  the  Schulze-Delitzch  credit  banks  was 
started  in  1850  by  Franz  Hermann  Schulze,  a  judge 
who  lived  in  South  Prussia,  and  it  was  called  an  Advance 
Union.  The  plan  of  these  banks  is  to  ensure  profit 
for  the  lender  rather  than  for  the  borrower,  and  for  this 
reason  the  shares  are  large — anything  betweeu  £30  and 
£50.  As  in  the  Raifeisen  Banks,  unlimited  liabiUty  is 
the  common  rule  for  shareholders,  but  the  rate  of 
interest  to  borrowers  is  often  much  higher  than  5  and 
may  amount  to  30  per  cent,  in  the  Schulze-DeUtzch 
Banks. 

In  both  cases  men  have  learnt  the  advantages  of 
co-operation  in  banking.  In  the  Raifeisen  Bank  the 
advantage  to  the  agriculturist  has  been  incalculable. 
In  the  Schulze-DeUtzch  Bank  men  have  combined  to 
supply  money  or  credit,  and  by  so  combining  have 
found  ample  profits  in  the  trade.  The  borrower  is 
infinitely  better  off  than  when  he  did  business  with  the 
private  firm  of  money-lenders,  for  the  charges  of  the 

*  Agricvlturai  Co-operation,  an  address  by  Rev.  Thos.  Phelan,  P.P. 
Published  by  the  I.A.O.S.  Sir  Horace  Pliinkett  and  Father  Finlay 
are  still  president  and  vice-president  respectively  of  the  Irish 
Agricultural  Organisation  Society. 


THE    CONTINENTAL    CO-OPERATOR    71 

Schulze-Delitzch  Bank  on  loans  are  moderate  and 
reasonable  compared  with  those  of  the  private  firm, 
and  of  the  profits  of  the  bank  the  borrower  will  get 
his  share. 

In  England  the  joint-stock  banks — now  in  steady 
process  of  amalgamation — have  so  long  held  the  field 
that  the  co-operative  credit  bank  can  hardly  get  a 
footing;  while  for  those  who  cannot  offer  adequate 
security  for  an  overdraft  at  the  bank  the  pa^\'nbroke^ 
exists. 

But  it  may  happen  yet  that  British  co-operators  both 
in  urban  and  rural  districts  will  give  their  attention 
to  banking.  Whether  mutual  confidence  could  be  so 
fostered  amongst  British  agriculturists  that  a  farmer 
would  acknowledge  his  need  for  a  loan  to  a  committee 
of  brother  farmers  is  a  question  not  easily  answered. 
At  present  it  is  pretty  clear  that  while  an  embarrassed 
agriculturist  will  confess  his  pHght  to  a  bank  manager, 
and  a  penniless  clerk  or  workman  will  creep  into  the 
pawnbroker's  secret  chamber  to  bargain  for  a  loan, 
there  is  a  very  strong  and  positive  disHke  on  the  part 
of  all  such  impecunious  persons  to  make  acknowledg- 
ment of  poverty  to  their  neighbours.  Yet  without  such 
acknowledgment  the  co-operative  bank  can  hardly  exist, 
and  the  need  of  the  bank  is  as  great  here  as  in  Germany. 
The  co-operative  spirit  informing  and  working  through 
men  and  women  of  goodwill  seems  the  only  possible 
instrument  in  this  country  for  getting  co-operative  credit 
banks  started.  These  banks  cannot  save  the  weak  in 
will,  the  idler,  the  sluggard,  or  the  foolish  from  ruin. 
Neither  can  they  save  the  distrustful  and  suspicious, 
the  unneighbourly  and  the  prideful,  or  generally  all 
those  who  would  rather  be  ruined  than  ask  a  favour 
or  receive  a  kindness  from  strangers.  Before  the  fool 
who  cannot  be  saved  and  the  wise  man  who  is  too  proud 
to  be  saved  (comforting  himself  when  the  waters  of 


72  CO-OPERATION 

tribulation  go  over  his  head  that  at  least  he  has  "  kept 
himself  to  himself ")  the  co-operator  with  his  credit 
bank  is  equally  powerless.  Amongst  neighbourly  and 
industrious  folk  he  may  do  business.  Hence  the  future 
of  co-operative  credit  banks  in  Great  Britain,  it  would 
seem,  depends  upon  the  growth  of  feelings  of  mutual 
trust,  the  removal  of  that  stumbHng-block  of  pride 
which  hates  a  friendly  service,  and  the  rooting  out  of 
that  anti-social  rivalry  between  kinsfolk  and  acquaint- 
ances which  shows  itself  in  "  keeping  up  appearances," 
often  to  the  concealment  and  denial  of  positive  needs. 

The  Maisons  du  Peuple  in  Belgium  are  the  distinctive 
co-operative  feature  in  that  industrious  and  thickly 
populated  land.  These  popular  club-houses  are  in  some 
parts  of  the  country  the  property  of  the  Socialist  organi- 
sations, in  other  places  they  have  been  erected  and  are 
owned  by  CathoHc  societies.  Attached  to  the  Maisons 
du  Peuple  are  co-operative  bakeries  and  distributive 
societies,  and  the  common  rule  is  that  the  workmen 
employed  enjoy  fuU  membership,  an  equal  share  in  the 
profits  with  the  consumer,  and  representation  on  the 
committee.  In  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word  these 
"  Houses  "  with  their  lecture-halls,  concert-rooms,  and 
restaurants  are  places  of  recreation  and  education. 
Co-operative  action  on  the  part  of  the  working-people 
built  them,  and  on  co-operative  principles  are  they 
managed  and  maintained.  At  Ghent,  the  great 
"  Vooruit "  for  instance  was  built  by  the  Co-operative 
Bakery,  a  bakery  which  started  in  quite  a  small  Avay  in 
1880  and  is  now  an  extremely  flourishing  business.  In 
addition  to  reading-rooms,  libraries,  and  restaurant,  the 
Vooruit  also  includes  grocery  and  shirt-making  depart- 
ments, and  medical  service. 

The  "  Maison  du  Peuple  "  at  Brussels  also  emerged 
from  a  very  modest  co-operative  bakery  established  in 
1882.     In  1899  the  present  building  was  erected  at  a 


THE    CONTINENTAL    CO-OPERATOR    73 

cost  of  £40,000.  It  was  built  by  trade  union  work- 
m«i,  and  \vith  its  cafe,  its  retail  shops,  its  medical 
consulting-rooms,  and  its  theatre  and  concert-hall  is 
the  headquarters  of  the  Socialist  movement. 

In  Italy  another  co-operative  development  can  be 
seen  in  the  "  Societa  di  Lavoro,"  an  industrial  organi- 
sation for  carrvdng  out  labour  contracts.  Road  repairs 
and  construction  and  the  general  work  of  the  navvy 
are  undertaken  by  the  Societa  di  Lavoro,  and  its  membei's 
see  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  work  conduct  the  manage- 
ment of  the  society,  and  share  the  profits  of  the  business. 
Another  ItaHan  feature  to  be  noted  is  the  Co-operative 
Alliance  at  Turin,  which  has  not  only  arranged  a  medical 
ser\-ice  for  its  members,  but  has  also  a  special  dispensary 
for  the  children  of  co-operators. 

Although  the  knowledge  of  all  that  co-operators  are 
doing  throughout  the  world  is  far  from  adequate,  and 
the  intercourse  between  co-operators  in  different  coun- 
tries is  still  inevitably  restricted,  the  work  of  the  Inter- 
national Co-operative  Alliance  Avidens  our  knowledge 
and  encourages  greater  intercourse.  The  International 
Alliance  has  its  offices  in  St.  Stephen's  House,  West- 
minster, and  the  United  Kingdom  is  by  far  its  largest 
subscriber.  Germany  comes  next,  and  Austria  third. 
Then  follow  Switzerland,  France,  Himgary,  Belgium, 
Finland,  Denmark,  Russia,  Italy,  Holland,  Sweden, 
Norway,  Roumania,  Servia,  India,  and  the  United 
States.  Finally  come  Spain,  Canada,  Argentina,  Cjrprus, 
Japan,  and  Bulgaria. 

The  minimum  subscription  to  the  Alliance  for  a  small 
society  is  lOs.  a  year,  and  though  the  International 
Co-operative  Alliance  has  been  in  existence  a  compara- 
tively short  time,  it  claims,  and  with  justice,  to  have 
done  much  in  that  time  to  bring  together  co-operators 
of  all  countries  and  nationaUties  in  close  and  friendly 
relations. 


74  CO-OPERATION 

Economic  conditions,  and  habits  of  life  determined 
by  these  conditions  and  by  religious  faith  and  social 
customs,  -will  naturally  direct  co-operative  impulse  in 
diverse  channels,  and  the  more  we  get  to  know  of  co- 
operative work  in  other  lands  the  better. 

Large  as  British  co-operative  distribution  looms  in 
the  co-operative  world,  our  insularity  is  apt  to  make  it 
appear  still  larger  and  to  crowd  all  other  co-operative 
activities  out  of  the  picture.  It  is  only  by  examination 
of  what  co-operators  are  doing  in  other  fields — especi- 
ally in  Denmark,  France,  Belgium,  Germany,  and  Italy — 
that  we  can  hope  to  wake  up  to  our  shortcomings.  Our 
respect  for  the  really  great  business  of  co-operative 
distribution  established  in  Great  Britain  will  not  be 
lessened  by  the  desire  for  further  outlets  for  co-operative 
energy,  or  weakened  by  the  perception  that  mutual  aid 
has  wrought  wonders  for  mankind,  and  is  a  vastly 
bigger  thing  in  life  than  a  factor  for  the  improved 
supply  of  necessary  commodities. 

"  Co-operators  must  be  protected  against  themselves 
— against  a  mistaken  idea  of  the  aim  of  their  movement, 
against  the  results  of  an  inflated  sense  of  the  value  of 
commercial  success,  against  the  greed  and  imscrupu- 
losity  that  follow,  against  the  temptation  to  grow  at 
any  cost — and  this  protection  must  be  constructive." 

Thus  Mr.  W.  R.  Rae,  of  the  Committee  of  Education, 
admonished  his  fellow  co-operators  at  the  annual  Con- 
gress in  1911,  and  thus  have  co-operators  ever  warned 
one  another  against  the  dangers  of  a  fatal  self- 
sufficiency. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

EDUCATIONAL     WOBK 

Expenditure  by  Co-operators  on  Education — Rochdale  Pioneers — 
Arnold  Toynbee  —  Professor  Stuart  —  The  Co-operative  Union — 
Education  Committees — The  Women's  Co-operative  Guild. 

From  the  i&rst  co-operators  have  been  alive  to  the 
importance  of  educational  work,  and  have  striven  to 
inform  themselves  and  enlighten  the  public  concemiog 
the  co-operative  faith.  They  have  done  more  than  this. 
They  have  steadily  aimed  at  the  making  of  good 
citizens,  and,  wisely  advised  by  their  leaders,  they 
have  contributed,  in  substantial  fashion,  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  our  democracy. 

The  success  of  co-operation  on  the  business  side  has, 
perhaps,  somewhat  obscured  this  educational  work ; 
especially  in  these  later  days  when  pubUc  libraries, 
County  Councils,  and  University  extension  lecturers 
provide  a  thousand  opportunities  for  acquiring  know- 
ledge undreamed  of  by  the  mass  of  working  people  in 
this  land  sixty  years  ago. 

The  Rochdale  Pioneers  began  right  away  by  deciding 
that  2^  per  cent,  of  their  net  profits  should  go  to  educa- 
tion, and  they  spent  the  money  thus  obtained  on  a 
reading-room  and  the  purchase  of  newspapers  —  the 
newspapers  of  that  time  costing,  commonly,  from  4d. 
to  6d.  each.  A  room  for  social  intercourse  and  the 
discussion  of  pubHc  questions  was  also  established,  and 
from  1850  to  1855  these  excellent  Pioneers  kept  a 
school  for  the  instruction  of  young  persons  in  reading, 

75 


76  CO-OPERATION 

writing,  and  arithmetic,  making  a  charge  of  2d.  per 
month  for  each  pupil.  Scientific  and  technical  journals 
came  to  be  taken  in  at  the  Pioneers'  Co-operative  Library 
as  the  profits  of  the  society  increased,  and  John  Bright 
was  heard  to  say  at  Rochdale  in  1862,  on  the  authority 
of  a  member  of  the  Athenaeum  Club  in  London,  that 
the  selection  of  periodicals  to  be  found  in  the  reading- 
room  of  the  Hbrary  was  "  better  and  more  extensive 
than  that  provided  by  the  Athenaeum  Club  itself." 

But  a  check  was  given  to  the  educational  work  of 
co-operators  by  the  Industrial  and  Provident  Societies 
Act  of  1855,  which  made  expenditure  on  education  out 
of  society  funds  illegal.  True,  this  prohibition  was 
withdrawn  seven  years  later  by  the  Act  of  1862,  but 
in  the  meantime  the  2|  per  cent,  for  educational  pur- 
poses had  been  dropped,  and  "  societies  got  out  of  the 
way  of  thinking  it  an  essential  matter."  ^  And  to  this 
day  quite  a  large  number  of  co-operative  societies  still 
refuse  to  regard  expenditure  on  education  as  "an 
essential  matter." 

A  specially  appointed  Committee  of  Inquiry  found 
that  in  1896  there  were  586  societies  spending  money 
on  education  to  the  extent  of  £46,752.  In  1902, 
746  societies  spent  £73,608.  In  1911,  832  societies 
spent  £99,694. 

When  all  allowance  is  made  for  the  fact  that  national 
and  municipal  responsibility  for  education  has  increased 
and  is  increasing  in  the  United  Kingdom,  it  must  still 
be  urged  that  the  education  of  co-operators  in  co-opera- 
tive faith  and  practice  cannot  be  left  to  the  State,  but 
remains  the  special  business  of  the  societies.  And  in 
this  connection  a  passage  from  the  Wholesale  Almatiack 
of  1883  may  be  quoted  for  the  benefit  of  the  600  societies 
which  made  no  educational  grant  in  1911 : 

"  We  regret  to  find  that  educational  grants  do  not 
'  Acland  and  Jones,  Working-Men  Co-operators. 


EDUCATIONAL    WORK  77 

keep  pace  with  the  general  growth  of  societies.  Neces- 
sity led  many  of  the  old  co-operators  to  study  co-opera- 
tion ;  but  the  growth  of  profits  which  has  resulted 
from  that  study  appears  to  make  many  young  ones 
care  less  for  it  than  the  old  ones.  Now,  unless  the 
young  ones  are  taught  what  co-operation  means,  and 
what  it  is  calculated  to  do,  how  are  we  to  prepare  our 
future  directors,  managers,  and  other  officers  ?  Our 
opinion  is  that  it  mil  pay  every  society  to  devote  at 
least  2i  per  cent,  of  its  net  profits  to  education,  and 
that,  though  societies  may  and  do  succeed  without  this, 
yet  it  is  because  the  older  generation  still  Uvea  and 
guides  them." 

A  good  co-operator  must  be  instructed  in  the  co- 
operative faith,  that  is  the  first  point.  And  the  second 
point  is  that  co-operative  propaganda  is  necessary  for 
the  general  pubho. 

Arnold  TojTibee  thirty  years  ago  at  the  Ck)-operative 
Congress  called  upon  co-operators  to  take  up  the  task 
of  education  in  citizenship,  since  the  State  had  made 
elementary  and  technical  education  a  national  duty. 

"  What  part  of  education  then  is  left  for  co-operators 
to  appropriate  ?  The  answer  I  would  give  is,  the 
education  of  the  citizen.  By  this  I  mean  the  educa- 
tion of  each  member  of  the  community  as  regards  the 
relation  in  which  he  stands  to  other  individual  citizens 
and  to  the  community  as  a  whole.  But  why  should 
co-operators  more  than  anyone  else  take  up  this  part 
of  education  ?  Because  co-operators,  if  they  would 
carry  out  their  avowed  aims,  are  more  absolutely  in 
need  of  such  an  education  than  any  other  persons,  and 
because  if  we  look  at  the  origin  of  the  co-operative 
movement  we  shall  see  that  this  is  the  work  in  educa- 
tion most  thoroughly  in  harmony  with  its  ideal  purpose." 

Vansittart  Neale,  J.  M.  Ludlow,  G.  J.  Holyoake, 
Thomas  Hughes,  Hodgson  Pratt,  Thomas  Blandford, 


78  CO-OPERATION 

and  all  whose  names  are  honoured  in  the  annals  of 
co-operation  contended  strenuously  for  education.  Pro- 
fessor Stuart  in  his  presidential  address  to  the  Co-opera- 
tive Congress  of  1879  called  attention  to  the  dangers  of 
ignorance  amongst  co-operators,  and  his  words,  though 
not  unheeded,  are  to  be  pondered  to-day  as  they  were 
when  they  were  deUvered  : 

"  If  the  mass  of  your  members  are  not  sufficiently 
instructed  in  economic  science,  in  the  facts  of  com- 
merce, in  the  state  of  this  and  other  countries,  in  the 
history  of  trade,  in  general  knowledge,  and  in  parti- 
cular knowledge  of  what  you  aim  at  and  how  you  seek 
it — I  say,  if  the  mass  of  your  members  are  not  suffi- 
ciently instructed  in  these  things,  there  arises  a  real 
danger  to  the  co-operative  movement ;  your  numbers 
become  a  hindrance,  and  your  possessions  become  a 
peril.  .  .  .  Your  movement  is  a  democratic  movement, 
if  ever  there  was  one.  It,  therefore,  cannot  repose  on 
the  good  sense  of  a  few ;  its  success  will  depend  on  the 
good  sense  of  the  masses  of  your  people.  .  .  .  First 
you  must  educate  your  members  in  your  own  prin- 
ciples, and  in  those  of  economic  science,  and  in  the 
history  of  endeavours  like  your  own  ;  and  in  the  second 
place,  you  must  educate  them  generally.  Education  is 
desirable  for  aU  mankind,  it  is  the  life's  necessity  for 
co-operators." 

Mindful  of  these  things  a  Central  Committee  on 
Education  was  established  within  the  Co-operative 
Union  in  1886,  "  primarily  (for)  the  formation  of 
co-operative  character  and  opinions ;  and  secondarily, 
though  not  necessarily  of  less  import,  (for)  the  training 
of  men  and  women  to  take  part  in  industrial  and  social 
reforms  and  municipal  life  generally." 

This  Central  Committee  on  Education  assists  the 
societies  in  educational  work,  arranges  classes  of  instruc- 
tion, conducts  examinations,  awards  prizes  and  scholar- 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK  79 

ships,  grants  certificates  to  students,  issues  text-books, 
sends  representatives  to  sit  on  University  joint-com- 
mittees at  Oxford,  Manchester,  Leeds,  London,  Birming- 
ham, Durham,  Liverpool,  and  Belfast,  and  makes  its 
annual  report  to  the  Co-operative  Congress. 

The  training  of  co-operative  secretaries  and  co-opera- 
tive employees  is  also  undertaken  by  the  Committee 
on  Education,  and  under  its  auspices  a  Co-operative 
Students'  Fellowship,  a  National  Co-operative  Men's 
Guild,  and  Co-operative  Circles  for  Young  People  have 
come  into  existence. 

A  scholarship  of  £100  a  year  for  four  years  at  Oriel 
College,  Oxford — the  Neale  Scholarship  in  memory  of 
Edward  Vansittart  Neale — and  two  travelling  scholar- 
ships of  £10  each  awarded  annually — ^the  Blandford 
Scholarships  in  memory  of  Thomas  Blandford — must 
be  mentioned  in  any  account  of  the  educational  work 
of  co-operators.  The  Co-operative  Union  also  awards 
a  number  of  scholarships  every  year  to  enable  students 
to  attend  the  Summer  Extension  Schools  at  Oxford, 
and  these  scholarship  funds  are  administered  by  the 
Education  Committee. 

For  the  past  ten  years  IVIr.  W.  R.  Rae,  of  Sunderland, 
has  been  the  chairman  of  this  Committee  on  Education, 
and  he,  the  staunchest  of  co-operators,  expounds  the 
faith  in  co-operative  education  as  zealously  as  Neale  and 
the  earlier  men  expounded  it.  For  instance,  this  passage 
from  Mr.  Rae's  paper  at  last  year's  Co-operative  Congress 
is  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the  best  leaders  of  the 
movement : 

"  We  are  out  for  the  development  of  morality  in 
commerce  and  industry,  and  to  make  this  possible  we 
should  have  a  common  economic  ideal.  We  have  too 
long  permitted  the  wTong  people  to  teach  us  political 
economy.  Do  we  not  begin  to  see  that  this  science, 
falsely  so  called,  is  but  a  clever  exposition  of  the  things 


80  CO-OPERATION 

men  do  to  get  wealth  ?  It  may  show  how  certain 
forms  of  wealth  are  to  be  gathered  together  in  certain 
bams,  but  it  will  not  teach  what  men  ought  to  do 
towards  each  other.  A  real  sense  of  the  solidarity  of 
the  human  race  will  not  spread  through  the  political 
economy  of  to-day.  We  know  that  life  and  H\'lng  are 
more  important  than  money  and  '  getting  on,'  but  we 
shall  have  to  get  clearer  ideas  of  the  conditions  and 
economics  of  industry.  The  distribution  of  wealth 
troubles  us,  but  we  have  not  data  on  which  to  evolve 
new  conditions.  Land  and  its  holding  give  us  anxious 
hours,  but  we  have  no  alternative  to  suggest." 

The  moral  of  this  is,  according  to  IVIr.  Rae,  that  co- 
operators  must  "  rekindle  the  old  faith  in  collective 
action  and  common  interest."  And  for  this  rekindling 
the  forward  work  must  be  "  constructive." 

"  The  concert,  the  hbrary  and  news-room,  the  meet- 
ing, with  a  speech  endured  in  the  middle  of  it,  have 
had  a  long  innings.  .  .  .  Ought  we  not  to  concentrate 
on  the  development  of  co-operative  opinion  among  our- 
selves, our  children,  and  our  employees  ?  " 

In  the  meantime  local  societies  continue  to  hold  their 
lectures,  and  concerts,  and  social  gatherings — with  the 
inevitable  speech  "  endured  in  the  middle." 

And  District  Conferences  are  held  by  the  different 
sections  for  the  discussion  of  the  internal  questions  of 
"  High  Dividends,"  "  The  Minimum  Wage,"  and  "  The 
Training  of  Employees." 

Mr.  Rae,  and  there  are  many  who  agree  with  him, 
would  have  the  Co-operative  Union  and  its  Central 
Education  Committee  the  recognised  agencies  for  some 
unification  of  the  educational  work,  the  District  Con- 
ference Associations  working  to  supply  material  for  a 
common  economic  policy. 

As  loyalty  on  the  business  side  of  co-operation  is 
determined  in  each  society  by  the  measure  of  custom 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK  81 

with  the  Wholesale,  so  loyalty  on  the  educational  side, 
it  is  maintained,  is  determined  not  only  by  the  local 
expenditure  on  education,  but  also  by  the  measure  of 
support  given  to  the  Co-operative  Union. 

That  prominent  co-operators  are  anxiously  concerned 
with  the  educational  work  of  the  societies  and  can 
find  much  that  calls  for  improvement  in  this  work,  is 
a  sign  of  healthy  life  in  the  co-operative  movement. 
There  is  no  danger  of  co-operative  principles  being  for- 
gotten in  the  success  of  business,  or  the  ideals  of  co- 
operators  becoming  despised,  as  long  as  men  and  women 
are  ready  at  congresses  and  conferences  to  call  attention 
to  weakness  in  the  movement,  and  to  insist  that  all  is 
not  as  well  as  it  might  be. 

It  is  only  when  co-operators  begin  to  assure  them- 
selves that  all  is  entirely  well  with  the  movement,  and 
to  resent  the  suggestion  that  reform  is  needed,  or  that 
faith  is  cold,  that  danger  can  be  scented.  For  the 
spirit  of  self-satisfaction  is  as  fatal  to  co-operators  as 
to  others ;  while  the  receptive  intelligence,  the  con- 
sciousness that  being  human  and  mortal  occasional 
failure  and  mistakes  are  to  be  expected,  the  willingness 
to  do  battle  with  foes  within  no  less  stoutly  than  with 
foes  without,  are  the  things  that  make  for  strength  in 
every  good  cause.  And  no  assurance  of  success  can 
make  up  for  the  absence  of  these  things  ;  for  they  are 
at  the  very  root  of  all  progress  in  the  afEairs  of  mankind. 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  work  of  the 
Women's  Co-operative  Guild,  and  no  account  of  the 
co-operative  movement  would  be  complete  which  left 
this  work  unmentioned.  The  Guild,  in  its  own  words, 
is  "  a  self-governing  organisation  of  women,  who  work 
through  Co-operation  for  the  welfare  of  the  people, 
seeking  freedom  for  their  own  progress,  and  the  equal 
fellowship  of  men  and  women  in  the  home,  the  store, 
the  workshop,  and  the  State."     In  the  main  the  mission 


82  CO-OPERATION  ^ 

of  the  Guild  has  been  to  stir  up  women  to  an  active 
interest  in  the  co-operative  store,  and  in  the  social 
questions  that  afEect  women  no  less  than  men.  Women 
are  the  housekeepers  and  the  purchasers.  It  is  for 
them  to  understand  the  difference  between  pure  goods 
made  under  fair  conditions  and  cheap  and  nasty  articles 
produced  under  quite  other  conditions.  If  the  local 
store  is  stocked  with,  let  us  say,  the  soaps,  cocoas,  and 
jams  of  private  firms  instead  of  the  soaps,  cocoas,  and 
jams  produced  by  the  Wholesale,  it  is  chiefly  because 
customers  will  have  it  so. 

Women  are  not  only  customers,  they  are  also  share- 
holders in  co-operative  societies.  They  sit  on  educa- 
tional and  management  committees,  and  on  the  Central 
Educational  Committee.  They  have  an  equal  responsi- 
bility with  men  for  the  wages  paid  to  and  the  hours 
worked  by  co-operative  employees. 

That  women,  coming  much  later  than  men  into 
pubhc  work  in  this  country,  and  often  discouraged  by 
the  foolish  jealousy  of  men  from  taking  a  larger  part 
in  co-operative  affairs,  have  in  so  many  places  proved 
their  capacity  as  good  co-operators,  must  be  placed  to 
the  credit  of  the  Women's  Guild.  So  valuable  indeed 
has  been  the  educational  work  of  the  Guild  that  in  the 
last  few  years  co-operative  guilds  for  men  have  sprung 
up,  and  are  now  federated  in  a  National  Co-operative 
Men's  Guild. 

To-day  when  women  are  engaged  so  widely  in  com- 
mercial, professional,  and  political  work,  when  they  are 
chosen  to  sit  on  city  councils  and  public  education 
committees,  and  are,  in  fact,  becoming  as  important 
in  pubhc  Ufe  as  they  were  in  Anglo-Saxon  times  and 
in  the  later  Middle  Ages,  their  place  in  the  co-opera- 
tive movement  must  affect  enormously  the  future  of 
that  movement. 

Any  lingering  taint  of  male  jealousy  or  survival  of 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK  88 

sex  dominance  that  would  exclude  women  from  the 
fullest  share  in  co-operative  management  is  bound  to 
damage  the  co-operative  cause.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  cordial  welcoming  of  women  to  the  various  com- 
mittees and  boards  within  the  co-operative  movement 
gives  an  assurance  of  confidence  in  the  future.  And 
as,  on  the  whole,  co-operators  have  hitherto,  in  the 
matter  of  justice  to  women  as  in  other  matters,  kept 
well  in  advance  of  pubhc  opinion,  often  leaving  Parlia- 
ment far  behind — as  in  the  case  of  the  property  of 
married  women — there  is  every  reason  to  anticipate 
that  in  the  immediate  future  women  will  share  far  more 
fully  with  men  than  they  have  yet  done  the  manage- 
ment of  co-operative  stores  and  the  direction  of  co- 
operative enterprise. 

The  future  has  its  own  secrets,  but  it  is  hardly  to  be 
supposed  that  with  non-co-operative  commerce  engaging 
more  and  more  the  services  of  women,  the  vast  busi- 
nesses— distributive  and  productive — of  co-operators 
will  not  require  the  aid  of  women  as  co-directors  with 
men.  As  these  days  approach,  the  educational  work 
of  the  Women's  Co-operative  Guild  begins  to  be  dis- 
cerned at  its  true  value. 


CHAPTER   IX 

CONCLUSION 

Summary  of  advantages,  of  hostile  criticisms,  of  limits,  and  of 
dangers  within. 

Let  us  briefly  sum  up  the  case  for  co-operation  and 
the  arguments  of  opponent  critics,  define  the  apparent 
limits  of  co-operative  enterprise,  and  glance  at  the 
obvious  dangers  within  the  movement. 

First,  to  state  the  advantages. 

"  Co-operation  does  away  with  the  grave  evils  of  debt, 
especially  in  connection  with  little  shops."  *  The  curse 
of  house-keeping  on  credit  is  the  irresponsibility  it 
breeds,  and  in  checking  this  irresponsibility  co-opera- 
tion has  strengthened  self-reliance  and  self-control  in  a 
thousand  homes.  But  it  has  done  far  more  than  check 
reckless  domestic  expenditure.  The  co-operative  store 
trains  men  and  women  to  act  with  prudence,  and  edu- 
cates them  in  the  business  of  conducting  wisely  their 
own  affairs.  A  positive  sense  of  responsibility  is  fostered 
by  co-operation,  and  in  learning  to  manage  the  store 
co-operators  gain  an  experience  that  is  invaluable  for 
good  citizens.  Through  the  store,  the  Sectional  and 
Central  Boards,  the  Women's  Co-operative  Guild,  the 
Wholesale  Society,  the  Co-operative  Union,  and  other 
co-operative  agencies,  men  and  women  come  to  the 
questions  of  local  self-government  and  imperial  politics 
with  quickened  intelligence  and  with  pubUc  spirit — 
qualities  of  highest  value  in  a  democratic  state. 

i  Acland  and  Jones,  Workini/-Men  Co-operators. 
84 


CONCLUSION  85 

Co-operation,  then,  develops  responsibility  in  private 
and  no  less  in  public  life,  and  is  an  education  in 
citizenship. 

By  setting  their  faces  from  the  first  against  adultera- 
tion, and  by  seeking  to  supply  only  goods  made  under 
fair  conditions  of  employment,  co-operators  have  helped 
to  improve  the  quality  of  food  enjoyed  by  the  mass  of 
working  people,  and  to  raise  the  standard  of  living. 

By  getting  rid  of  multitudes  of  non-productive  middle- 
men, they  have  kept  prices  down  ;  and  by  saving  both 
on  the  cost  of  production  and  on  the  cost  of  distribu- 
tion co-operators  have,  in  a  large  number  of  cases, 
raised  themselves  above  the  fear  of  pauperism  to  a 
comparative  independence. 

It  makes  for  civilisation  this  co-operative  movement, 
for  courtesy,  and  for  neighbourly  feeling.  It  gives 
character  to  its  adherents,  a  character  of  self-respect 
and  of  mutual  respect.  For,  respecting  themselves  they 
each  respect  one  another  ;  or,  at  least,  that  is  what  they 
ought  to  be  doing,  if  they  are  really  co-operative  in  mind. 

Finally,  co-operation  is  a  steady  influence  for  social 
peace.  Set  up  as  an  alternative  to  competition,  its 
propaganda  is  against  strikes  and  labomr  wars,  as  it  is 
against  the  low  wages  and  long  hoiu^  that  commonly 
provoke  strikes.  Between  trade  unionists  and  co- 
operators  there  are  many  ties,  and  the  sympathies  of 
co-operators  are  generally  with  the  trade  unions  when 
any  big  strike  takes  place.^  But  to  the  co-operator  a 
strike  is  a  state  of  war,  a  thing  to  be  prevented  if 
possible,  and  in  any  case  to  be  deplored.  For  the 
ways  of  progress,  according  to  the  co-operator,  are 
paths  of  peace,  and  mankind  by  adopting  co-operative 
principles  turns  to  those  paths,  henceforth  to  seek  peace. 

Nevertheless,  so  perverse  is  human  nature  that  strikes 

^  The  Co-operative  Wholesale  Society  has  just  given  £1000  to 
the  relief  funds  of  the  London  dockers  on  strike,  July  1912. 


86  CO-OPERATION 

do  occur  from  time  to  time  even  in  the  factories  and 
workshops  of  Wholesale  Co-operative  Societies. 

Against  the  co-operator's  articles  of  faith  hostile 
critics  make  various  charges. 

Some  allege  openly  that  the  cultivation  of  thrift 
tends  to  meanness  of  mind ;  that  economy  is  a  wise 
expenditure  rather  than  a  careful  saving ;  and  that 
co-operation  commonly  begins  and  ends  with  niggardly 
purchases  at  the  store.  Of  course  there  is  no  disputing 
with  people  who  genuinely  admire  the  Richard  Swivellers 
and  Harold  Skimpoles  of  life,  and  see  in  every  co-operator 
a  would-be  Bounderby  or  Gradgrind.  If  it  be  a  vice  to 
live  within  one's  income  and  pay  one's  way,  then  is  the 
co-operator  a  vicious  person.  (As  a  matter  of  fact,  for 
all  our  admiration  for  the  casual,  happy-go-lucky  hero 
of  the  Swiveller  type  we  find  him  a  great  nuisance, 
and  as  far  as  possible  avoid  him,  so  tired  are  we  of  his 
endless  borrowings.) 

The  orderly  co-operative  mind  is  no  more  given  to 
meanness  than  the  disorderly  non-co-operative.  Only 
when  this  very  orderliness  of  outlook  and  conduct  is 
an  offence,  no  common  ground  is  left  for  discussion. 

That  co-operators  often  enough  take  little  interest  in 
matters  not  connected  with  their  store  is  not  denied. 
It  is  merely  to  say  that  they  are  no  better  and  no  worse 
than  the  bulk  of  their  neighbours,  and  are  lacking  in 
genuine  whole-hearted  co-operative  faith. 

Other  critics  flatly  deny  that  the  gains  achieved  at 
the  store,  and  the  half-yearly  dividend  on  purchases, 
bring  any  real  advantage  to  the  working-class.  They 
insist  that  if  the  necessaries  of  life  are  cheapened  wages 
fall,  because  wages  tend  always  to  sink  to  the  level  of 
mere  subsistence. 

The  only  answer  to  this  is  that  as  the  standard  of 
comfort  steadily  rises  so  the  "  level  of  mere  subsistence  " 
for  the  wage-earner  rises  too.    Education  has  raised 


^  CONCLUSION  87 

fand  is  still  raising  that  level,  and  co-operators  •with 
their  travel  parties  on  the  Continent,  their  social  enter^ 
tainments,  their  lectures  and  conferences,  are  helping  to 
make  it  impossible  for  working  people  to  Uve  the  bare 
imadomed  Uves  that  sufficed  for  their  grandparents. 

Then  we  come  to  those  objectors  who  fear  the  growth 
of  every  industry  and  lament  the  disappearance  of  the 
small  shop  and  the  small  business.  To  such  we  can 
only  say  that  as  long  as  men  and  women  find  there 
is  considerable  advantage  to  be  gained  by  co-operative 
action  in  industry  they  will  continue  to  co-operate. 
While  membership  in  the  co-operative  society  is  open 
to  all  who  care  to  join,  there  can  be  no  danger  to  the 
pubUc  of  a  co-operative  monopoly.  The  open  member- 
ship, it  must  be  noted,  is  at  the  very  root  of  distributive 
co-operation,  and  has  been  a  chief  factor  in  the  pros- 
perity of  co-operative  societies  since  their  formation. 
If  the  trade  of  a  co-operative  store  is  becoming  so  large 
that  private  traders  in  the  neighbourhood  are  undone, 
co-operators  are  but  reaping  an  advantage  which  all 
may  share.  There  is  no  menace  of  capital  in  the  growth 
of  a  co-operative  society,  because  the  number  of  shares 
in  the  society  is  strictly  unlimited,  and  no  probabiUty 
exists  that  co-operators  wish  to  have  it  otherwise. 

That  co-operation  is  of  Uttle  benefit  to  the  destitute, 
or  to  the  worst  paid  of  wage-earners — to  the  very  persons 
who  stand  in  direct  need  of  help  and  of  the  strength 
that  comes  of  combination — is,  of  course,  lamentably 
true,  and  has  never  been  denied  by  co-operators.  And 
this  brings  us  within  sight  of  the  limits  of  co-operation. 

"  The  first  barrier  to  an  indefinite  extension  of  the 
co-operative  movement  under  the  present  social  system 
are  the  conditions  of  life  of  certain  classes.  Men  hving 
below  a  certain  standard  of  life,  or  in  isolation,  popu- 
lations continually  shifting  their  abode  and  changing 
their  occupation,  are  incapable  of  voluntary  association. 


88  CO-OPERATION 

whether  as  consumers  or  producers.  The  hand-to- 
mouth  existence  of  the  casual  labourer,  the  physical 
inertia  of  the  sweater's  victim,  the  vagrant  habits  and 
irregular  desires  of  the  street  hawker  and  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  common  lodging-house — in  short,  the 
restlessness  or  mortal  weariness  arising  from  lack  of 
mourishment,  tempered  by  idleness  or  intensified  by 
physical  exhaustion,  do  not  permit  the  development, 
in  the  individual  or  the  class,  of  the  qualities  of  demo- 
cratic association  and  democratic  self-government.  We 
need  no  demonstration  of  the  truth  of  this  fact ;  it  is 
the  burden  of  complaint  at  trade  union  and  co-opera- 
tive congresses."  ^ 

These  words,  written  more  than  twenty  years  ago, 
can  unfortunately  be  repeated  to-day  without  qualifica- 
tion. Their  writer  points  to  another  social  barrier  still 
standing  in  the  way  of  the  co-operator. 

"  Poverty  and  irregular  habits  form  a  lower  limit  to 
the  growth  of  Co-operation.  Fastidiousness  and  the 
indifEerence  bred  of  luxury  constitute  a  higher  limit  to 
the  desire  or  capacity  for  democratic  self-government. 
.  .  .  The  caprices  of  fashion,  the  vagaries  of  personal 
vanity  and  over-indulged  appetites  can  find  no  satis- 
faction in  an  organisation  of  industry  based  on  the 
supply  of  rational  and  persistent  wants.  Moreover,  the 
severe  mental  strain  consequent  on  the  conscientious 
expenditure  of  a  large  income,  or  the  apathy  of  a 
mechanical  satisfaction  of  every  want,  disinclines  the 
wealthy  customer  for  the  responsibilities  of  association. 
Physical  nausea  and  mental  exhaustion  are  the  common 
ailments  of  the  rich,  as  well  as  the  complaints  of  the 
very  poor ;  while  the  love  of  personal  possessions,  and 
the  spirit  of  rivalry  engendered  by  social  ambition, 
effectually  withdraw  the  surplus  energies  of  the  well- 
to-do  classes  from  any  form  of  democratic  association.'* 
'  Potter,  The  Co-operative  Movement. 


CONCLUSION  89 

These  social  limits  are  frankly  recognised.  There  are 
other  boundaries  to  co-operative  progress  that  must 
be  as  frankly  acknowledged.  Railways  and  tramways, 
docks  and  shipping  can  hardly  come  under  co-operative 
management  with  any  advantage  to  the  community. 
Such  pubHc  services  may  be  nationalised  or  placed 
under  municipal  control,  but  no  general  body  of  con- 
sumers can  claim  their  direction,  for  the  whole  nation 
are  customers  in  these  cases. 

Profit-sharing  may  be  introduced  in  a  private  gas 
company  or  a  colUery,  but  neither  gas  company  nor 
coUiery  can  be  administered  by  a  co-operative  society, 
for  here  again  the  customers  are  necessarily  the  general 
public.  And  where  the  general  pubhc  is  compelled  to 
deal,  as  in  the  case  of  gas,  coal,  railways,  and  shipping, 
the  only  alternative  to  private  ownership  is  public 
ownership.  A  democratic  self-governing  co-operative 
society  does  not  trade  for  profit  but  for  the  convenience 
of  its  members,  and  its  membership  (as  we  pointed  out 
before)  must  be  open  to  all  who  will  join.  It  cannot 
compel  people  to  trade  with  it  or  refuse  to  allow  them 
to  become  shareholders.  In  the  cases  mentioned  above 
it  would  compel  custom  without  giving  any  privileges 
of  membership.  A  co-operative  railway,  for  instance, 
would  have  for  its  customers  not  only  passengers  but 
all  whose  goods  it  conveyed  ;  and  on  co-operative  prin- 
ciples every  passenger  and  every  parcel  sender  should 
have  a  share  in  the  dividend.  Which  is  obviously  not 
a  practicable  scheme  of  things. 

A  co-operative  gas  company,  similarly,  should  give  a 
dividend  on  the  amount  of  gas  consumed,  and  this 
would  involve  extraordinary  difficulties.  A  municipal 
gas  supply  is  the  simplest  form  of  co-operation,  for  the 
"  profits  "  in  this  case  are  distributed  over  the  whole 
body  of  ratepayers. 

"  The  Umits  of  the  probable  domain  of  the  Co-opera- 


90  CO-OPERATION 

tive  State  are  now  all  within  sight.  Voluntary  associa- 
tions of  consumers  are  practically  restricted  to  the 
provision  of  certain  articles  of  personal  use,  the  pro- 
duction of  which  is  not  necessarily  a  monopoly,  the 
consumption  of  which  is  not  absolutely  compulsory, 
and  for  which  the  demand  is  large  and  constant.  Under 
the  present  social  system  a  restricted  portion  only  of 
the  nation  is  within  reach  of  a  social  democracy — that 
intermediate  class  neither  too  poor  nor  too  wealthy  for 
democratic  self-government."  * 

One  self-imposed  restriction  remains  to  be  mentioned. 
From  the  day  when  the  Rochdale  Pioneers  declared 
that  "  the  promotion  of  sobriety "  was  one  of  their 
objects,  co-operators  have  consistently  refused  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  the  sale  or  the  production  of 
alcohohc  liquors.  They  have  not  opened  the  temperance 
hotels  which  the  Pioneers  desired  to  open  "  as  soon  as 
convenient,"  but  co-operative  cafes  on  temperance  lines 
have  been  established  in  some  towns,  and  co-operators 
generally  are  active  in  "  the  promotion  of  sobriety." 

The  dangers  within  the  co-operative  movement  may 
be  quickly  pointed  out. 

The  over-eagerness  for  a  big  "  dividend  "  (sometimes 
called  "  Divi.-Hunting  "),  whereby  consumers  are  drawn 
after  cheap  goods,  and  become  indifferent  to  the  con- 
ditions of  labour  in  the  production  of  commodities, 
and  averse  from  all  expenditure  on  education,  is  always 
a  source  of  weakness  amongst  co-operators. 

Rivalry  between  two  different  co-operative  societies 
in  the  same  neighbourhood  and  competition  between 
two  productive  societies  in  the  same  line  of  business  are 
dangers  that  crop  up  over  and  over  again.  The  rivalry 
between  different  stores  leads  to  overlapping  and  all  the 
wastefulness  of  private  trade,  besides  creating  a  spirit  of 
ill-will  quite  contrary  to  the  fellowship  of  co-operation. 
*  Potter,  The  Co-operative  Movement. 


CONCLUSION  91 

The  cure  for  "  Divi.-Hunting  "  is  in  the  education  of 
members.  Rivahy  and  overlapping  can  best  be  re- 
medied by  arbitration  and  by  loyal  acceptance  of  the 
umpire's  award.  But  the  health  of  the  whole  co- 
operative movement  depends  upon  the  faithful  following 
of  co-operative  principles  and  the  keeping  untarnished 
the  co-operative  ideal  of  society. 

We  finish  on  a  note  of  warning. 

"  The  pressing  need  of  the  movement  to-day  is  that 
every  individual  co-operator  should  arrive  at  a  clear 
imderstanding  of  the  principles  upon  which  Co-opera- 
tion is  based,  and  acquire  some  knowledge  of  its  business 
methods.  The  movement  is  justly  proud  of  its  great 
organisation  ;  but  the  tendency — to  which  all  successful 
undertakings  are  liable — to  exalt  commercial  prosperity 
at  the  expense  of  principle  is  a  weakness  of  which 
co-operators  should  beware.  The  trite  axiom  that '  the 
strength  of  the  chain  is  its  weakest  link  '  holds  good  in 
Co-operation  as  in  any  other  organisation.  Whether 
the  '  weakest  Hnk  '  is  found  in  the  apathy  of  individual 
co-operators  ;  in  ilUberal  treatment  of  employees  ;  in 
the  growth  of  a  commercial  spirit ;  or  in  ignorance  of 
economic  tendencies,  it  is  this  link  which  should  be 
most  closely  watched,  lest  the  fair  chain  of  democratic 
brotherhood  which  binds  co-operators  into  one  complete 
whole  break  at  this  point. 

"  Whatever  the  future  may  hold,  the  present  is  not 
the  time  in  which  co-operators  can  rest  content  with 
their  achievements.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  leaders 
of  thought  in  the  movement  should  be  imbued  with 
the  high  ideals  that  have  come  to  them  from  the  past : 
Co-operation  is  essentially  a  democratic  movement,  and 
its  ultimate  success  depends  upon  the  membership  as 
a  whole — their  knowledge  of  its  principles,  their  devo- 
tion to  its  cause."  ^ 

^  C.  Webb,  Industrial  Co-operation. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(The  following  list  of  books  is  not  intended  to  exhaust 
the  subject.  It  merely  names  a  few  volumes  which 
should  be  useful  to  the  student  of  co-operation.) 

Fay,  C  R.     Co-opercUion  at  Home  and  Abroad. 

HoLYOAKE,  G.  J.     History  of  Co-operation. 

HoLYOAKE,  G.  J.     History  of  Rochdale  Pioneers. 

Potter,  B.  (Mrs.  Sidney  Webb).  The  Co-operative 
Movement  in  Great  Britain. 

AcLAND,  A.  H.  D.,  and  Benjamin  Jones.  Working- 
Men  Co-operators. 

Webb,  Catherine.     Industrial  Co-operation. 

Davies,  Margaret  Llewelyn.  The  Women's  Co- 
operative Guild. 

Publications  of  the  Co-operative  Union  and  the  Co- 
operative Productive  Federation,  Ltd. 

Guide  Social,  1904-12. 

Annee  Sociale  Internationale,  1910-12. 

Both  annuals  published  by  L' Action  Populaire 
of  Rheims. 

Vermebrsch,  a.,  and  Mdller,  A.  Manuel  Social,  la 
legislation  et  les  oeuvres  en  Belgique,  2  vols.  (Paris, 
Alcan.) 

JoLY,  H.     Ultalie  contemporaine.     (Paris,  Blond.) 

Pretres  de  France. 
Paysans  de  France. 

Both  published  by  L' Action  Populaire. 

92 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  93 

Hubert  -  Valleroux,    P.      La    Co-operation.      (Paris, 

Lecofire.) 
RowNTREE,  B.  S.     Land  and  Labour  in  Belgium. 
Pratt,  E.  A.     The  Transition  in  Agriculture. 
Pratt,  E.  A.     The  Organisation  of  Agriculture. 
Tardy,   L.      Le    credit    et  la  Co-operation  Agricole   en 

France.     (Mem.  et  doc.  du  Musee  Social,  Aug.  1911.) 


ADDRESSES   OF   CO-OPERATIVE 
ORGANISATIONS 

The  Co-operative  Union,  Ltd.,  Holyoake  House,  Han- 
over Street,  Manchester. 
Co-operative    Productive    Federation,    Ltd.,    Alliance 

Chambers,  Horsefair  Street,  Leicester. 
Women's  Co-operative  Guild,  66  Rosslyn  Hill,  Hamp- 

stead,  London. 
Agricultural  Organisation  Society,  Ltd.,  Queen  Anne's 

Chambers,  Tothill  Street,  Westminster,  S.W. 
Irish    Agricidtural    Organisation    Society,    Ltd.,    The 

Plunkett  House,  Dublin. 
Labour    Co-partnership    Association,     6    Bloomsbury 

Square,  London,  W.C. 
International  Co-operative  AlUance,  147  St.  Stephen's 

House,  Westminster,  S.W. 


INDEX 


Acland,  Mr.  A.  D.,  24 

Amalgamated  Union  of  Co-operative 

Employees,  28 
Assington,  Suffolk,  62 
AuociatioTU  ouvriiret,  47 
Belgium,  68 

Blandford,  Thomas,  77  79 
Bright,  John,  7,  76 
Brown,  Sir  B.  C,  50 
Bnches,  46 

Burt,  Right  Hon.  T.,  46 
Cliristian  Socialists,  15,  16,  17,  38,  45 
Coin  St.  Aldwyus,  62 
Combe,  Abram,  11 
Cooper,  William,  14 
Co-operative  Neios,  23,  24,  25,  36 
Co-partnership,  24,  43 
Courtney,  Ixjrd,  50 
Craig,  E.  T.,  11,  12 
Credit  Banks,  68 
Crystal  Palace  festival,  43 
Davies,  Miss  Llewelyn,  24 
Denmark,  59,  64,  67,  74 
"  Divi.-Ilunting,"  90,  91 
EeoTunniM,  10 
Tinlay,  Father.  S.J..  69.  70 
Prance,  45,  46,  47,  61,  69,  66,  67,  74 
Gas  Light  and  Coke  Co.,  50,  51,  64 
Germany,  68,  70,  74 
Ghent,  72 
Oodin,  61 

Greening,  E.  O.,  22,  60 
Guise,  61 

Hadow,  Mr.  W.  H.,50 
Holyoake,  G.  J.,  22,  77 
Howar  h,  Charles,  14 
Hughes,  Thomas,  15,  17,  18,  22,  47,  77 
International  Co-operative   AUiance, 

73 
Ireland,  30,  69,  67 
Italy.  73,  74 
Xingsley,  Charles,  15 


Labour   Co-partnership   Associatioo, 

43,  48 
Lawrenson,  Mrs.,  24 
Leclaire,  51 
Lever,  Sir  W.  H.,  60 
Ludlow,  J.  M.,  16,  17, 18,  22,  47,  50,  77 
Uaisont  du  PeupU,  68,  72 
Marshall,  Prof.  Alfred,  60 
Maurice,  F.  D.,  15,  17,  47 
Middle  Class,  The,  32 
Mitigate  Monthly,  24,  36 
Morrison,  Walter,  18 
Neale,  E.  Vansiltart,  16, 17, 18,  22,  47, 

77,  79 
New  Harmony,  11 
New  Lanark,  9,  12 
Orbiston,  11 

Overlapping.  36,  37,  90,  91 
Owen,  Robert,  9,  10,  11,  12,  IS,  46 
Plunkett,  Sir  Horace,  59,  60,  69,  70 
Pratt,  Hodgson,  77 
Queen  wood,  12 
Rae,  Mr.  W.  R.,  74,  79,  80 
Rafeisen  Banks,  68,  69,  70 
Ralahine,  11 
Reddish,  Miss,  25 
Redfeam,  Mrs.,  24 
Rochdale  Pioneers.  13,  14. 16,  43,  75 
Schulre-Delitzch  Banks.  68,  70,  71 
Societa  di  Lavoro,  73 
Stuart,  Prof.,  78 
Syndicats  ArrricoUs.  65 
Taylor.  Mr.  T.  C,  M.P..  50,  63 
Thomson,  Mr.  George,  50,  53 
Toynbee,  Arnold,  77 
Vandeleur,  John  Scott,  11, 12 
Wheattkea/.  24.  36 
Williams,  Mr.  Aneurin,  49.  50 
Women's  Co-operative  Guild,  24,  25, 

27,  38,  81,  82,  83 
Working  Men's  College,  17 


Printed  by  Ballintykk,  Hanson  &*  Co. 
Ekiinburgh  tS?'  London 


IS 


"We  have  nothlngr  bnt  the  bigrhest  praise  for  these 
little  books,  and  no  one  who  examines  them  will  have 
anything  else." — IVtstminster  Cazttu,  22nd  June  1913. 

THE    PEOPLE'S    BOOKS 

THE  FIRST  NINETY  VOLUMES 

The  voltunes  issued  are  marked  with  an  asterisk 

SGIENCH 

•i.  The  Foundations  of  Science        .        .  By  W.  C.  D.  Whetham,  F.R.S. 

*3.  Embryology— The  Begrinoiagrs  of  Life  By  Prof.  Gerald  l^ighton,  M.D. 

3.  Biology— The  Science  of  Life     .        .  By  Prof.  W.  D.  Hender'^n,  .M.A. 

4.  Animal  Life  By  Prof.  E.  W.  MacHriae.  F.R.S. 

•5.  Botany;  The  Modern  Stady  of  Plants  By  M.  C.  Stopes,  D.Sc,  Ph.D. 

6.   Bacteriology By  W.  E.  Carnegie  Dickson,  M.D. 

•7.  Geology By  the  Rev.  T.  G.  Bonney,  F.R.S. 

•8.  Evolution By  E.  S.  Goodrich,  M. A.,  F.R.S. 

9.  Darwin By  Prof.  W.  Garstang,  M.A.,  D.Sc. 

•10.  Heredity By  J.  A.  S.  Watson,  B.Sc 

•11.  Inorganic  Chemistry     ....  By  Prof.  E.  C.  C.  Baly,  F.R.S. 

•12.  Organic  Chemistry        ....  By  Prof.  J.  B.  Cohen.  B  Sc,  F.R.& 

•13.  The  Principles  of  Electricity       .        .  By  Norman  K.  Campbell,  M.A. 

•14.  Radiation By  P.  Phillips,  D.Sc 

•15.  The  Science  of  the  Stars     .  .  By  E.  W.  Maunder,  F.R.A.S. 

16.  Light,  according  to  Modern  Science  By  P.  Phillips,  D.Sc 

•17.  Weather-Science By  R.  G.  K.  Lempfert,  M.A. 

*i8.  Hypnotism By  Alice  Hutchison,  M.D. 

•19.  The^Bj^by^  A  Mother's  Book  by  «}  gy  a  University  Woni^.. 

ao.  Youth  and  Sex— Dangers  and  Safe- /  By  Mary  Scharlieb.M.D.,  M.S.,  and 
guards  for  Boys  and  Girls   .        .\         G.  E.  C  Pritchard,  M.A.,  M.D. 
*9i.  Motherhood— A  Wife's  Handbook     .    By  H.  S.  Davidson,  F.R.CS.E. 

•22.  Lord  Kelvin By  A.  Russell,  M.  A.,  D.Sc 

*23.  Huxley By  Professor  G.  Leighton,  M.D. 

«4.  Sir  W.   Hnggins  and   Spectroscopic/ By  E.W.  Maunder,  F.R.A.S., of  the 

Astronomy \         Royal  Observatory,  Greenwich. 

•62.  Practical  Astronomy     .        .        .        .     By  H.  Macpherson,  Jr.,  F.R.A.S. 
.*      A^,fi„.,  /By     Sydney     F.     Walker,      R.N., 

•63.  Aviation I    '   M.I.E.E. 

•64.  Navigation By  Rev.  W.  Hall,  R.N.,  B.A. 

65.  Pond  Life By  E.  C.  Ash,  M.R  A.C. 

•66.  Dietetics  .        .        .        ,        .        .        .By  Alex.  Bryce,  M.D.,  D.P.H. 

PHILOSOPHT  AND  RBIiIGION 

as.  The  Meaning  of  Philosophy        .        .  By  Prof.  A.  E.  Taylor,  M.  A.,  F.B.A. 

•26.  Henri  Bergson By  H.  Wildon  Carr. 

«7.  Psychology By  H.  J.  Watt,  M.A.,  Ph.D. 

28.  Ethics By  Canon  Rashdall,  D.Litt.,F.B.A. 

29.  Kant's  Philosophy By  A.  D.  Lindsay,  M.A. 

30.  The  Teaching  of  Plato         .        .        .  By  A.  D.  Lindsay,  M.A. 

•67.  Aristotle By  Prof.  A.  E.Taylor,  M. A.,  F.B.A. 

68.  Nietzsche By  M.  A.  Musge,  Ph.D 

•69.  Eucken By  A.  J.  Jones,  M.A. ,  B.Sc,  Ph.D. 

70.  Beauty  ^^m^  Essay  in   Experimental  |  gy  C  W.  Valentine.  B.A. 

71.  The  Problem  of  Truth '.'.'.    By  H.  Wildon  Carr. 

_    ....  f  By  Prof.  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  M.A-, 

31.  Buddhism IFBA. 

•        D  z'   ..u   r  J  /By   H.    B.   Coxon.     Preface,   Mgr. 

•32.  Roman  Catholicism        ,        .        .        -I         r.  h.  Benson. 
33.  The  Oxford  Movement         ...    By  WUfrid  P.  Ward. 


PHILOSOPHT  AND  RBLIOIOH— (cm/>»w<0 

34.  The  Bible  in  the  Light  of  the  Higher/  By  Rcy.  W.  F.  Adeney,  M.A.,  and 

Criticism    .         .  .        .        .\       Rev.  Prof.  W.  H.  Bennett,  Litt-D. 

35.  Cardinal  Newman By  Wilfrid  Meynell. 

•ya.  The  Church  of  England       .        .        .     By  Rev.  Canon  Masterttian. 

73.  Anglo-Catholicism  .         .         .         .     By  A.  E.  Manninr  Foster. 

•74.  The  Free  Churches       ....     By  Rev.  Edward  Shillito,  M.A, 

75.  Judaism By  Ephraim  Levine,  B.A. 

•76.  Theosophy By  Mrs.  Annie  Besant. 


•36.  The  Growth  of  Freedmn 

37.  Bismarck  . 
•38.  Oliver  Cromwell 
•39.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots 

40.  Cecil  Rhodes  . 
*4i.  Julius  Czsar  . 

History  of  England— 

43.  England  in  the  Making 

•43.  England  in  the  Middle  Ages 

44.  The  Monarchy  and  the  People 

45.  The  Industrial  Revolution 

46.  Empire  and  Democracy 

*6i.  Home  Rule 
77.  Nelson      .... 
7S.  Wellington  and  Waterloo 


HISTORY 

By 


H.  W.  Nevinson. 

Prof.  F.  M.  Powicke,  M.A. 

Hilda  Johnstone,  M.A. 

E.  O'Neill,  M.A. 

Ian  Colvin. 


.  By 
.  By 
.     By 

•  By 

.     By  Hilary  Hardinge. 

/By  Prof.  F.  J.  C.  Heamshaw,  M.A., 
•\         LL.D. 

.     By  Mrs.  E.  O'Neill,  M.A. 
.     By  W.  T.  Waugh,  M.A. 

By  A.  Jones,  M.A. 
.     ByG.  S.  Veitch.  M.A. 

/  By  L.  G.  Redmond  Howard.     Pre- 
■  \         face  by  Robert  Harcourt,  M.P. 
.     By  H.  W.  Wils.m. 
,     By  Major  G.  W.  Redway. 

BOCIAI<  JLKD  KCONOHIO 

•47-  Women's  Suffrage  .     By  M.  G.  Fawcett,  LL.D. 

48.  The  Working  of  the  British  System  I  c    d    <-  r>  »»-»•» 
*             of  Government  to-day    .                  |  By  Prof.  Ramsay  Muir,  M.A. 

49.  An  Introduction  to  Economic  Science    By  Prof.  H.  O.  Meredith,  M.A. 

50.  Socialism By  F.  B.  Kirkmao,  B.A. 

79.  Socialist  Theories  in  the  Middle  Ages  By  Rev.  B.  Jarrctt,  O.P.,  M.A. 

•80.  Syndicalism By  J.  H.  Harley,  M.A. 

81.  Labour  and  Wages       .        .        .        .  By  H.  M.  Hallswortk,  M.A.,  B.SCi 

•»2.  Co-operation By  Joseph  Clayton. 

'83.  Insurance  as  Investment      .        .        .  By  W.  A.  Rob«Ttsoii,  F.F.A. 

•93.  The  Training  of  the  Child  .        .        .  By  G.  Spiller. 


•S'. 
52- 
•53- 

•54. 

•ss- 

•56. 
•57. 

58. 

59. 
•60. 

84. 
•85. 

86. 

87. 

83. 

89. 

90. 

•"• 
93- 


X<BTTBRB 

Shakespeare By 

Wordsworth By 

Pure  Gold— A  Choice  of  Lyrics  and\p 

Sonnets / 

Francis  Bacon By 

The  Brontes By 

Carlyle By 

Dante By 

Ruskin By 

Common  Faults  in  Writing  English  By 
A  Dictionary  of  Synonyms  .  .By 
Classical  Dictionary  .  .  .  .By 
History  of  English  Literattire  .  .  By 
Browning By 


Charles  Lamb 

Goethe 

Balzac 

Rousseau 

Ibsen . 

Tennyson 


Pr»f.  C.  H.  Herf.rd,  Litt.D. 

Miss  Rosaline  Masson. 

H.  C.  O'Neill. 

Prof.  A.  R.  Skemp,  M.A. 

Miss  Flora  Masson. 

the  Rev.  L.  MacLean  Watt. 

A.  G.  Ferrers  Howell. 

A.  Blyth  Webster,  M.A. 

Prof.  A.  R.  Skemp,  M.A. 

Austim  K.  Gray.  B.A. 

Miss  A.  E.  Stirling. 

A.  Compton-Rickett. 

Prof.  A.  R.  Skemp,  M.A. 

Miss  Flora  Masson. 

Prof.  C.  H.  Herford.  LituD. 

Frank  Harris. 

F.  B.  Kirkman,  B.A. 

Hilary  Hardinge. 

Aaron  Watson. 


LONDON  AND  EDINBURGH:  T.  C.  &  E.  C.  JACK 
NEW  YORK:  DODGE  PUBLISHING  CO.  V  . 


A     000  669  442     6 


